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THE HAND IN THE DARK 


By ARTHUR J. REES 

The Shrieking Pit 

By REES &* WATSON 

The Mystery of the Downs 
The Hampstead Mystery 



NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
MCMXX 




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Copyright, 1920, 

By John Lane Company 


PRESS OF 

THE VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY 
BINGHAMTON, N. Y. , U. S. A. 

JUL 14 1920 i 

©Cl, A5719G2 



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THE HAND IN THE DARK 






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THE HAND IN THE DARK 


CHAPTER I 

Seen in the sad glamour of an English twilight, the old 
moat-house, emerging from the thin mists which veiled 
the green flats in which it stood, conveyed the impres- 
sion of a habitation falling into senility, tired with cen- 
turies of existence. Houses grow old like the race of 
men ; the process is not less inevitable, though slower ; 
in both, decay is hastened by events as well as by the 
passage of Time. 

The moat-house was not so old as English country- 
houses go, but it had aged quickly because of its past. 
There was a weird and bloody history attached to the 
place : an historical record of murders and stabbings and 
quarrels dating back to Saxon days, when a castle had 
stood on the spot, and every inch of the flat land had 
been drenched in the blood of serfs fighting under a 
Saxon tyrant against a Norman tyrant for the sacred 
catchword of Liberty. 

The victorious Norman tyrant had killed the Saxon, 
taken his castle, and tyrannized over the serfs during 
his little day, until the greater tyrant, Death, had taught 
him his first — and last — lesson of humility. After his 
death some fresh usurper had pulled down his stolen 
castle, and built a moat-house on the site. During the 
next few hundred years there had been more fighting 
for restless ambition, invariably connected with the mak- 
ing and unmaking of tyrants, until an English king lost * 

9 


10 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


his head in the cause of Liberty, and the moat-house was 
destroyed by fire for the same glorious principle. 

It was rebuilt by the freebooter who had burnt it 
down ; one Philip Heredith, a descendant of Philip Here- 
Deith, whose name is inscribed in the Domesday Book 
as one of the knights of the army of Duke William which 
had assembled at Dives for the conquest of England. 
Philip Heredith, who was as great a fighter as his Nor- 
man ancestor, established his claim to his new estate, and 
avoided litigation concerning it, by confining the Royal- 
ist owner and his family within the walls of the moat- 
house before setting it on fire. He afterwards married 
and settled down in the new house with his young wife. 
But the honeymoon was disturbed by the ghost of the 
cavalier he had incinerated, who warned him that as he 
had founded his line in horror it would end in horror, 
and the house he had built would fall to the ground. 

Philip Heredith, like many other great fighters, was 
an exceedingly pious man, with a profound belief in the 
efficacy of prayer. He endeavoured to thwart the ghost’s 
curse by building a church in the moat-house grounds, 
where he spent his Sundays praying for the eternal wel- 
fare of the gentleman he had cut off in the flower of 
his manhood. Perhaps the prayers were heard, for, when 
Philip Heredith in the course of time became the first 
occupant of the brand-new vault he had built for him- 
self and his successors, he left behind him much wealth, 
and a catalogue of his virtues in his own handwriting. 
The wealth he left to his heirs, but he expressly stipulated 
that the record of his virtues was to be carved in stone 
and placed as an enduring tablet, for the edification of 
future generations, inside the church he had built. 

It was a wise precaution on his part. The dead are 
dumb as to their own merits, and the living think only of 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


ii 


themselves. Time sped away, until the first of the Here- 
diths was forgotten as completely as though he had 
never existed ; even his dust had been crowded off the 
shelf of his own vault to make room for the numerous 
descendants of the prolific and prosperous line he had 
founded. But the tablet remained, and the old moat- 
house he had built still stood. 

It was a wonderful old place and a delight to the eye, 
this mediaeval moat-house of mellow brick, stone fac- 
ings, high-pitched roof, with terraced gardens and 
encircling moat. It had defied Time better than its 
builder, albeit a little shakily, with signs of decrepitude 
here and there apparent in the crow’s-feet cracks of the 
brickwork, and decay only too plainly visible in the crazy 
angles of the tiled roof. But the ivy which covered 
portions of the brickwork hid some of the ravages of 
age, and helped the moat-house to show a brave front 
to the world, a well-preserved survivor of an ornamental 
period in a commonplace and ugly generation. 

The place looked as though it belonged to the past and 
the ghosts of the past. To cross the moat bridge was to 
step backward from the twentieth century into the seven- 
teenth. The moss-grown moat walls enclosed an old- 
world garden, most jealously guarded by high yew 
hedges trimmed into fantastic shapes of birds and an- 
imals; a garden of parterres and lawns, where tritons 
blew stone horns, and naked nymphs bathed in marble 
fountains; with an ancient sundial on which the gay 
scapegrace Suckling had once scribbled a sonnet to a 
pair of blue eyes — a garden full of sequestered walks 
and hidden nooks where courtly cavaliers and bewitching 
dames in brocades and silks, patches and powder, had 
played at the great game of love in their day. That day 
was long since dead. The tritons and nymphs remained, 


12 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


to remind humanity that stone and marble are more 
durable than flesh and blood, but the lords and ladies 
had gone, never to return, unless, indeed, their spirits 
walked the garden in the white stillness of moonlit nights. 
They may well have done so. It was easy to imagine 
such light-hearted beauties visiting again the old garden 
to revive dead memories of love and laughter: shadowy 
forms stealing forth to assignations on the blanched, 
dew-laden lawn, their roguish faces and bright eyes — if 
ghosts have eyes — peeping out of ghostly hoods at gay 
ghostly cavaliers ; coquetting and languishing behind 
ghostly fans ; perhaps even feeding, with ghostly little 
hands, the peacocks which still kept the terrace walk 
above the moat. 

The spectacle of a group of modern ladies laughing 
and chatting at tea in the cloistered recesses of the 
terrace garden struck a note as sharply incongruous as a 
flock of parrots chattering in a cathedral. 

It was the autumn of 1918, and with one exception 
the ladies seated at the tea-tables on the lawn represented 
the new and independent type of womanhood called into 
existence by the national exigencies of war. The elder 
of them looked useful rather than beautiful, as befitted 
patriotic Englishwomen in war-time; the younger ones 
were pretty and charming, but they were all workers, or 
pretended workers, in the task of helping England win 
the war, and several of them wore the khaki or blue of 
active service abroad. They were all very much at ease, 
laughing and talking as they drank their tea and threw 
cake to the peacocks perched on the high terrace walk 
above their heads. 

The ladies were the guests of Sir Philip Heredith. 
Some months before, his only son Philip, then holding 
a post in the War Office, had fallen in love with the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


13 


pretty face of a girl employed in one of the departments 
of Whitehall. He married her soon afterwards, and 
brought her home to the moat-house. It was the young 
husband who had suggested that they should liven up 
the old moat-house by inviting some of their former 
London friends down to stay with them. Violet Here- 
dith, who found herself bored with country life after 
the excitement of London war work, caught eagerly at 
the idea, and the majority of the ladies at tea were the 
former Whitehall acquaintances of the young wife, with 
whom she had shared matinee tickets and afternoon teas 
in London during the last winter of the war. 

The hostess of the party, Miss Alethea Heredith, sis- 
ter of the present baronet, Sir Philip Heredith, and mis- 
tress of the moat-house since the death of Lady Here- 
dith, belonged to a bygone and almost extinct type of 
Englishwoman, the provincial great lady, local society 
leader, village patroness, sportswoman, and church- 
woman in one, a type exclusively English, taking several 
centuries to produce in its finished form. Miss Heredith 
was an excellent, if somewhat terrific, specimen of the 
class. She was tall and massive, with a large-boned face, 
tanned red with country air, shrewd grey eyes looking 
out beneath thick eyebrows which met across her fore- 
head in a straight line (the Heredith eyebrows) and a 
strong, hooked nose (the Heredith falcon nose). But 
in spite of her massive frame, red face, hooked nose, and 
countrified attire, she looked more in place with the sur- 
roundings than the frailer and paler specimens of woman- 
hood to whom she was dispensing tea. There was a stiff 
and stately grace in her movements, a slow ceremonious- 
ness in her politeness to her guests, which seemed to 
harmonize with the seventeenth-century setting of the 
moat-house garden. 


14 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


At the moment the ladies were discussing an event 
which had been arranged for that night : a country drive, 
to be followed by a musical evening and dance. The 
invitations had been issued by the Weynes, a young 
couple who had recently made their home in the county. 
The husband was a popular novelist, who had left the 
distractions of London in order to win fame in peace 
and quietness in the country. Mrs. Weyne, who had 
been slightly acquainted with Mrs. Heredith before her 
marriage, was delighted to learn she was to have her 
for a neighbour. She had arranged the evening on her 
behalf, and had asked Miss Heredith to bring all her 
guests. The event was to mark the close of the house 
party, which was to break up on the following day. Un- 
fortunately, Mrs. Heredith had fallen ill a few hours 
previously, and it was doubtful whether she would be 
able to join in the festivity. 

“ I hope you will all remember that dinner is to be a 
quarter of an hour earlier to-night,” said Miss Heredith, 
as she handed a cup of tea to one of her guests. “ It is 
a long drive to the Weynes’ place, so I shall order the 
cars for half-past seven.” 

The guests glanced at their hostess and murmured 
polite assent. 

“ I am looking forward to the visit so much,” said the 
lady to whom Miss Heredith had handed the cup. “ It 
will be so romantic — a country dance in a lonely house 
on a hill. What an adorable cup, dear Miss Heredith! 
I love Chinese egg-shell porcelain, but this is simply be- 
yond anything! It’s — ” 

” Whatever induced Dolly Weyne to bury herself in 
the country ? ” abruptly exclaimed a young woman with 
cropped hair and khaki uniform. *' She loathed the 
•country before she was married.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


15 


“ Mrs. Weyne is a wife, and it is her duty to like her 
husband’s home,” said Miss Heredith a little primly. 
She disapproved of the speaker, whose khaki uniform, 
close-cropped hair, crossed legs, and arms a-kimbo struck 
her as everything that was modern and unwomanly. 

“ Then what induced Teddy Weyne to bury himself 
alive in the wilds? I’m sure it must be terrible living 
up there alone, with nothing but earwigs and owls for 
company.” 

“ Mr. Weyne is a writer,” rejoined Miss Heredith. 
“ He needs seclusion.” 

“ My husband doesn’t,” said a little fair-haired woman. 
“ He says newspaper men can write anywhere. And we 
know another writer, a Mr. Harland, I think his name 
is, who writes long articles in the Sunday newspapers — ” 

“ I don’t think his name is Harland, dear,” interrupted 
another lady. “ Something like it, but not Harland. 
Dear me, what is it ? ” 

“ Oh, the name doesn’t matter,” retorted her friend. 
“ The point is that he writes long articles in his London 
office. Why can’t Mr. Weyne do the same?” 

“Mr. Weyne is a novelist — not a journalist. It’s 
quite a different thing.” 

“ Is it ? ” responded the other doubtfully. “ All writ- 
ing is the same, isn’t it? Harry says Mr. Harland’s 
articles are dreadfully clever. He sometimes reads bits 
of them to me.” 

“ Mrs. Weyne feels a little lonely sometimes,” said 
Miss Heredith. “ She has been looking forward to meet- 
ing Violet again. It will be pleasant for both of them 
to renew their acquaintance.” 

“ I should think she and Violet would get on well to- 
gether,” remarked the young lady with the short hair. 
“ They both have a good many tastes in common. 


i6 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


Neither likes the country, for one thing.” The other 
ladies looked at one another, and the speaker, realizing 
that she had been tactless, stopped abruptly. “ How is 
Violet ? ” she added lamely. “ Do you think she will be 
well enough to go to-night ? ” 

“ I still hope she may be well enough to go,” replied 
Miss Heredith. “ I will ask her presently. Will any- 
one have another cup of tea ? ” 

Nobody wanted any more tea. The meal was fin- 
ished; but the groups of ladies at the little tables sat 
placidly talking, enjoying the peaceful surroundings and 
the afternoon sun. Some of the girls produced cigarette- 
cases, and lit cigarettes. 

There was a sound of footsteps on the gravel walk. 
A tall good-looking young officer was seen walking across 
the garden from the house. As he neared the tea-tables 
he smilingly raised a finger to his forehead in salute. 

“ I’ve come to say good-bye,” he announced. 

The ladies clustered around him. It was evident 
from their manner that he was a popular figure among 
them. Several of the younger girls addressed him as 
“ Dick,” and asked him to send them trophies from the 
front. The young officer held his own amongst them 
with laughing self-possession. When he had taken his 
farewell of them he approached Miss Heredith, and held 
out his hand with a deferential politeness which con- 
trasted rather noticeably with the easy familiarity of his 
previous leave-taking. 

“ I am sorry you are compelled to leave us, Captain 
Nepcote,” said Miss Heredith, rising with dignity to ac- 
cept his outstretched hand. “ Do you return immed- 
iately to the front ? ” 

“ To-night, I expect.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


1 7 

“ I trust you will return safely to your native land be- 
fore long, crowned with victory and glory.” 

Captain Nepcote bowed in some embarrassment. Like 
the rest of his generation, he was easily discomposed by 
fine words or any display of the finer feelings. He was 
about twenty-eight, of medium height, clean-shaven, with 
clear-cut features, brown hair, and blue eyes. At the first 
glance he conveyed nothing more than an impression of 
a handsome young English officer of the familiar type 
turned out in thousands during the war; but as he stood 
there talking, a sudden ray of sunlight falling on his 
bared head revealed vague lines in the face and a sus- 
picion of silver in the closely cropped hair, suggesting 
something not altogether in keeping with his debonair 
appearance — secret trouble or dissipation, it was im- 
possible to say which. 

“Will you say good-bye to Mrs. Heredith for me?” 
he said, after a slight pause. “ I hope she will soon be 
better. I have said good-bye to Sir Philip and Phil. 
Sir Philip wanted to drive me to the station, but I know 
something of the difficulties of getting petrol just now, 
and I wouldn’t allow him. Awfully kind of him! Phil 
suggested walking down with me, but I thought it would 
be too much for him.” 

They had walked away from the tea-tables towards 
the bridge which spanned the entrance to the moat-house. 
Miss Heredith paused by two brass cannon, which stood 
on the lawn in a clump of ornamental foliage, with an 
inscription stating that they had been taken from the 
Passe-partout , a French vessel captured by Admiral 
Heredith in the Indian Seas in 1804. 

“ It is hard for Phil, a Heredith, to remain behind when 
all young Englishmen are fighting for their beloved land,” 


i8 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


she said softly, her eyes fixed upon these obsolete 
pieces of ordnance. “ He comes of a line of great war- 
riors. However,” she went on, in a more resolute tone, 
“ Phil has his duties to fulfil, in spite of his infirmity. 
We all have our duties, thank God. Good-bye, Captain 
Nepcote. I am keeping you, and you may miss your 
train.” 

“ Good-bye, Miss Heredith. Thank you so much for 
your kindness during a very pleasant visit. I've en- 
joyed myself awfully.” 

“ I am glad that you have enjoyed your stay. I hope 
you will come and see us again when your military duties 
permit.” 

44 Er — yes. Thank you awfully. Thank you once 
more for your kindness.” 

The young officer uttered these polite platitudes of a 
guest's farewell with some abruptness, bowed once more, 
and turned away across the old stone bridge which 
spanned the moat. 


CHAPTER II 


Miss Heredith turned her steps towards the house. 
The guests had dispersed while she was saying fare- 
well to Captain Nepcote, and nothing further was ex- 
pected of her as a hostess until dinner-time. It was her 
daily custom to devote a portion of the time between tea 
and dinner to superintending the arrangements for the 
latter meal. The moat-house possessed a competent 
housekeeper and an excellent staff of servants, but Miss 
Heredith believed in seeing to things herself. 

On her way to the house she caught sight of an under 
gardener clipping one of the ornamental terrace hedges on 
the south side of the house, and she crossed over to him. 
The man suspended his work as the great lady ap- 
proached, and respectfully waited for her to speak. 

“ Thomas,” said Miss Heredith, ** go and tell Linton 
to have both motors and the carriage at the door by half- 
past seven this evening. And tell him, Thomas, that 
Platt had better drive the carriage.” 

The under gardener touched his cap and hastened 
away on his errand. Miss Heredith leisurely resumed 
her walk to the house, stopping occasionally to pluck up 
any weed which had the temerity to show its head in 
the trim flower-beds which dotted the wide expanse of 
lawn between the moat and the house. She entered the 
house through the porch door, and proceeded to the 
housekeeper’s apartments. 

Her knock at the door was answered by a very pretty 
girl, tall and dark, who flushed at the sight of Miss 
Heredith, and stood aside for her to enter. A middle- 
19 


20 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


aged woman, with a careworn face and large grey eyes, 
dressed in black silk, was seated by the window sewing. 
She rose and came forward when she saw her visitor. 
She was Mrs. Rath, the housekeeper, and the pretty girl 
was her daughter. 

“How are you, Hazel?” said Miss Heredith, offering 
her hand to the girl. “ It is a long time since I saw you. 
Why have you not been to see us lately ? ” 

The girl appeared embarrassed by the question. She 
hesitated, and then, as if reassured by Miss Heredith’s 
gracious smile, murmured that she had been so busy 
that she had very little time to herself. 

“ I thought they gave you an afternoon off every week 
at your place of employment,” pursued Miss Heredith, 
seating herself in a chair which the housekeeper placed 
for her. 

“ Not always,” replied Hazel. “ At least, not lately. 
We have had such a lot of orders in.” 

“ Do you like the millinery business, Hazel ? ” 

“ Very much indeed, Miss Heredith.” 

“ Hazel is getting on nicely now,” said her mother. 

“ I am very glad to hear it,” responded Miss Heredith, 
in the same gracious manner. “You must come and see 
us oftener. I take a great interest in your welfare, 
Hazel. Now, Mrs. Rath.” 

There are faces which attract attention by the ex- 
pression of the eyes, and the housekeeper’s was one of 
them. Her face was thin, almost meagre, with sunken 
temples on which her greying hair was braided, but her 
large eyes were unnaturally bright, and had a strange 
look, at once timid and watchful. She now turned them 
on Miss Heredith as though she feared a rebuke. 

“ Mrs. Rath,” said Miss Heredith, “ I hope dinner will 
be served punctually at a quarter to seven this evening, 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


21 


as I arranged. And did you speak to cook about the 
poultry? She certainly should get more variety into her 
cooking. ,, 

“ It is rather difficult for her just now, with the food 
controller allowing such a small quantity of butcher’s 
meat,” observed Mrs. Rath. “ She really does her best.” 

" She manages very well on the whole, but she has 
many resources, such as poultry and game, which are 
denied to most households.” 

When Miss Heredith emerged from the housekeeper’s 
room a little later she was quite satisfied that the dinner 
was likely to be as good as an arbitrary food controller 
would permit, and she ascended to her room to dress. 
In less than half an hour she reappeared, a rustling and 
dignified figure in black silk. She walked slowly along 
the passage from her room, and knocked at Mrs. Here- 
dith’s door. 

“ Come in ! ” cried a faint feminine voice within. 

Miss Heredith opened the door gently, and entered the 
room. It was a spacious and ancient bedroom, with 
panelled walls and moulded ceiling. The Jacobean furni- 
ture, antique mirrors, and bedstead with silken drapings 
were in keeping with the room. 

A girl of delicate outline and slender frame was lying 
on the bed. She was wearing a fashionable rest gown 
of soft silk trimmed with gold embroidery, her fair hair 
partly covered by a silk boudoir cap. By her side stood 
a small table, on which were bottles of eau-de-Cologne 
and lavender water, smelling salts in cut glass and silver, 
a gold cigarette case, and an open novel. 

The girl sat up as Miss Heredith entered, and put her 
hands mechanically to her hair. Her fingers were loaded 
with jewels, too numerous for good taste, and amongst 
the masses of rings on her left hand the dull gold of the 


22 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


wedding ring gleamed in sobej* contrast. Her face was 
pretty, but too insignificant to be beautiful. She had 
large blue eyes under arching dark brows, small, regular 
features, and a small mouth with a petulant droop of 
the under lip. Her face was of the type which instantly 
attracts masculine attention. There was the lure of sex 
in the depths of the blue eyes, and provocativeness in 
the drooping lines of the petulant, slightly parted lips. 
There was a suggestion of meretriciousness in the 
tinted lips and the pretence of colour on the charming 
face. The close air of the room was drenched with the 
heavy atmosphere of perfumes, mingled with the pungent 
smell of cigarette smoke. 

Miss Heredith took a seat by the bedside. The two 
women formed a striking contrast in types: the strong, 
rugged, practical country lady, and the fragile feminine 
devotee of beauty and personal adornment, who, in the 
course of time, was to succeed the other as the mistress 
of the moat-house. The difference went far beyond ex- 
ternals; there was a wide psychological gulf between 
them — the difference between a woman of healthy mind 
and calm, equable temperament, who had probably never 
bothered her head about the opposite sex, and a woman 
who was the neurotic product of a modern, nerve-ridden 
city; sexual in type, a prey to morbid introspection and 
restless desires. 

The younger woman regarded Miss Heredith with a 
rather peevish glance of her large eyes. It was plain 
from the expression of her face that she disliked Miss 
Heredith and resented her intrusion, but it would have 
needed a shrewd observer to have deduced from Miss 
Heredith’s face that her feeling towards her nephew’s 
wife was one of dislike. There was nothing but con- 
strained politeness in her voice as she spoke. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


23 

How is your head now, Violet? Are you feeling 
any better ? ” 

44 No. My head is perfectly rotten.” As she spoke, 
the girl pushed off her boudoir cap, and smoothed back 
the thick, fair hair from her forehead, with an impatient 
gesture, as though she found the weight intolerable. 

44 1 am sorry you are still suffering. Will you be well 
enough to go to the Weynes’ to-night?” 

44 1 wouldn’t dream of it. I wonder you can suggest 
it. It would only make me worse.” 

44 Of course I shall explain to Mrs. Weyne. That is, 
unless you would like me to stay and sit with you. I do 
not like you to be left alone.” 

44 There is not the slightest necessity for that,” said 
Mrs. Heredith decisively. 44 Do go. I can ring for 
Lisette to sit with me if I feel lonely.” 

44 Perhaps you would like Phil to remain with you ? ” 
suggested Miss Heredith. 

44 Oh, no ! It would be foolish of him to stay away 
on my account. I want you all to go and enjoy your- 
selves, and not to fuss about me. At present I desire 
nothing so much as to be left alone.” 

44 Very well, then.” Miss Heredith rose at this hint. 
44 Shall I send you up some dinner ? ” 

44 No, thank you. The housekeeper has just sent me 
some strong tea and dry toast. If I feel hungry later 
on I’ll ring. But I shall try and sleep now.” 

44 Then I will leave you. I have ordered dinner a 
little earlier than usual.” 

44 What time is it now? ” Violet listlessly looked at her 
jewelled wrist- watch as she spoke. 44 A quarter-past six 
— is that the right time ? ” 

Miss Heredith consulted her own watch, suspended 
round her neck by a long thin chain. 


24 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ Yes, that is right.” 

44 What time are you having dinner ? ” 

“ A quarter to seven.” 

“ What’s the idea of having it earlier? ” asked the girl, 
propping herself up on her pillow with a bare white arm, 
and looking curiously at Miss Heredith. 

“ I have arranged for us to leave for the Weynes’ at 
half-past seven. It is a long drive.” 

“ I see.” The girl nodded indifferently, as though her 
curiosity on the subject had subsided as quickly as it 
had arisen. 14 Well, I hope you will all have a good 
time.” She yawned, and let her fair head fall back on 
the pillow. “ Now I shall try and have a sleep. Please 
tell Phil not to disturb me. Tell him I’ve got one of my 
worst headaches. You are sure to be back late, and I 
don’t want to be awakened.” 

She closed her eyes, and Miss Heredith turned to leave 
the room. As she passed the dressing-table her eyes 
fell upon a handsome jewel-case. As if struck by a sud- 
den thought, she turned back to the bedside again. 

44 Violet,” she said. 

The girl half opened her eyes, and looked up at the 
elder woman from veiled lids. 44 Yes?” she murmured. 

44 Your necklace — I had almost forgotten. Mr. 
Musard goes back to town early in the morning, and he 
wishes ‘to take it with him.” 

44 Oh, it will have to wait until the morning. I don’t 
know where the keys are, and I can’t be bothered looking 
for them now.” The girl turned her face determinedly 
away, and buried her head in the pillow, like a spoilt 
child. 

Miss Heredith flushed slightly at the deliberate rude- 
ness of the action, but did not press the request. She 
left the room, softly closing the door behind her. She 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


25 


walked slowly along the wide passage, hung with bugle 
tapestry, and paused for a while at a narrow window 
at the end of the gallery, looking out on the terrace gar- 
dens and soft green landscape beyond. The interview 
with her nephew’s wife had tried her, and her reflections 
were rather bitter. For the twentieth time she asked her- 
self why her nephew had fallen in love with this unknown 
girl from London, who loathed the country. From Miss 
Heredith’s point of view, a girl who smoked and talked 
slang lacked all sense of the dignity of the high position 
to which she had been called, and was in every way un- 
fitted to become the mother of the next male Heredith, 
if, indeed, she consented to bear an heir at all. It was 
Miss Heredith’s constant regret that Phil had not married 
some nice girl of the county, in his own station of life, 
instead of a London girl. 

Miss Heredith terminated her reflections with a sigh, 
and turned away from the window. She was above all 
things practical, and fully realized the folly of brooding 
over the inevitable, but the marriage of her nephew was 
a sore point with her. She proceeded in her stately way 
down the broad and shallow steps of the old staircase, 
hung with armour and trophies and family portraits. At 
the bottom of the stairs she encountered a manservant 
bearing a tray with sherry decanters and biscuits across 
the hall. 

“Where is Mr. Philip?” she asked. 

“ I think he is in the billiard room, ma’am,” the man 
replied. 

Miss Heredith proceeded with rustling dignity to the 
billiard room. The click of billiard balls was audible be- 
fore she reached it. The door was open, and inside the 
room several young men, mostly in khaki, were watch- 
ing a game between a dark-haired man of middle age and 


26 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


a young officer. One or two of the men looked up as 
Miss Heredith entered, but the young officer went on 
stringing his break together with the mechanical skill 
of a billiard marker. Miss Heredith mentally character- 
ized his action as another instance of the modern decay 
of manners. In her young days gentlemen always 
ceased playing when a lady entered the billiard room. 
The middle-aged player came forward, cue in hand, and 
asked her if she wanted anything. 

“ I am looking for Phil,” she said. “ I thought he was 
here.” 

“ He was, but he has just gone to the library. He 
said he had some letters to write before dinner.” 

“ Thank you.” Miss Heredith turned away and 
walked to the library which, like the billiard room, was 
on the ground floor. She opened the door, and stepped 
into a large room with an interior which belonged to the 
middle ages. There was no intrusion of the twentieth- 
century in the great gloomy apartment with its faded 
arabesques and friezes, bronze candelabras, mediaeval fit- 
tings, and heavy time-worn furniture. 

The young man who sat writing at an ancient writing- 
table in the room was not out of harmony with the ancient 
setting. His face was of antique type — long, and nar- 
row, and his long straight dark hair, brushed back from 
his brow, was in curious contrast to the close crop of a 
military generation of young men. His eyes were dark, 
and set rather deeply beneath a narrow high white fore- 
head. He had the Heredith eyebrows and high-bridged 
nose; but, apart from those traditional features of his 
line, his rather intellectual face and slight frame had 
little in common with the portraits of the massive war- 
like Herediths which hung on the walls around him. He 
ceased writing and looked up as his aunt entered. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


27 


“ I have just been to see Violet,” Miss Heredith ex- 
plained. “ She says she is no better, and will not be 
able to accompany us to the Weynes’ to-night. I sug- 
gested remaining with her, but she would not hear of it. 
She says she prefers to be alone. Do you think it is right 
to leave her? I should like to have your opinion. You 
understand her best, of course.” 

“ I think if Violet desires to be alone we cannot do 
better than study her wishes,” replied Phil. “ I know 
she likes to be left quite to herself when she has a nervous 
headache.” 

“ In that case we will go,” responded Miss Heredith. 
“ I have decided to have dinner a quarter of an hour 
earlier to enable us to leave here at half-past seven.” 

“ I see,” said the young man. “ Is Violet having any 
dinner ? ” 

“ No. She has just had some tea and toast, and now 
she is trying to sleep. She does not wish to be disturbed 
— she asked me to tell you so.” Miss Heredith glanced 
at her watch. “ Dear me, it is nearly half-past six ! I 
must go. Tufnell is so dilatory when quickness is 
requisite.” 

“Did you remind Violet about the necklace?” asked 
Phil, as his aunt turned to leave the library. 

“Yes. She said she would send it down in the morn- 
ing, before Vincent leaves.” 

Phil nodded, and returned to his letters. Miss Here- 
dith left the room, and proceeded along the corridor to 
the big dining-room. An elderly man servant, grey and 
clean-shaven, permitted a faint deferential smile to ap- 
pear on his features as she entered. 

“Is everything quite right, Tufnell?” she asked. 

Tufnell, the staid old butler, who had inherited his 


28 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


place from his father, bowed gravely, and answered 
decorously : 

“ Everything is quite right, ma’am.” 

Miss Heredith walked slowly round the spacious table, 
adjusting a knife here, a fork there, and giving an added 
touch to the table decorations. There was not the slight- 
est necessity for her to do so, because the appointments 
were as perfect as they could be made by the hands of old 
servants who knew their mistress and her ways thor- 
oughly. But it was Miss Heredith’s nightly custom, and 
Tufnell, standing by the carved buffet, watched her with 
an indulgent smile, as he had done every evening during 
the last ten years. 

While Miss Heredith was thus engaged, the door 
opened and Sir Philip Heredith entered the room in com- 
pany with an old family friend, Vincent Musard. 


/ 


CHAPTER III 


Sir Philip Heredith was a dignified figure of an 
English country gentleman of the old type. He was tall 
and thin, aristocratic of mien, with white hair and faded 
blue eyes. His face was not impressive. At first sight 
it seemed merely that of a tired old man, weary of the 
paltry exactions of life, and longing for rest; but, at odd 
moments, one caught a passing resemblance to a caged 
eagle in a swift turn of the falcon profile, or in a sudden 
flash of the old eyes beneath the straight Heredith brows. 
At such times the Heredith face — the warrior face of 
a long line of fierce fighters and freebooting ancestors — 
leaped alive in the ageing features of the last but one 
of the race. 

His companion was a man of about fifty-five. His 
face was brown, as though from hot suns, his close- 
cropped hair was silver-grey, and he had the bold, clear- 
cut features of a 'man quick to make up his mind and ac- 
customed to command. His eyes were the strangest fea- 
ture of his dominating personality. They were small 
and black, and appeared almost lidless, with something 
in their dark direct gaze like the unwinking glare of a 
snake. His apparel was unconventional, even for war- 
time, consisting of a worn brown suit with big pockets 
in the jacket, and a soft collar, with a carelessly arranged 
tie. On the little finger of his left hand he wore a ruby 
ring of noticeable size and lustre. 

Vincent Musard was a remarkable personality. He 
came of a good county family, which had settled in Sus- 
sex about the same time that the first Philip Heredith 
had burnt down the moat-house, but his family tree ex- 

29 


30 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


tended considerably beyond that period. If the name of 
Here-Deith was inscribed in the various versions of the 
Roll of Battle Abbey to be seen in the British Museum, 
the name of Musard was to be found in the French roll 
of “ Les Compagnons de Guillaume a la Conquete de 
l’Angleterre en 1066,” the one genuine and authentic 
list, which has received the stamp of the French 
Archaeological Society, and is carved in stone and erected 
in the Church of Dives on the coast of Normandy. Vin- 
cent Musard was the last survivor of an illustrious line, 
a bachelor, explorer, man of science, and connoisseur in 
jewels. He had been intended for the Church in his 
youth, but had quarrelled with it on a question of doc- 
trine. Since then he had led a roving existence in the 
four corners of the earth, exploring, botanizing, shooting 
big game, and searching for big diamonds and rubies. He 
had written books on all sorts of out-of-the-way sub- 
jects, such as “ The Flora of Chatham Islands,” “Poison- 
ous Spiders (genus Latrodectua) of Sardinia,” “ Fossil 
Reptilia and Moa Remains of New Zealand,” and “ Seals 
of the Antarctic.” But his chief and greatest hobby was 
precious stones, of which he was a recognized expert. 

His father had left him a comfortable fortune, but he 
had made another on his own account by his dealings 
in gems, which he collected in remote corners of the 
world and sold with great advantage to London dealers. 
He was intimately acquainted with all the known mines 
and pearl fisheries of the world, but his success as a 
dealer in jewels was largely due to the fact that he 
searched for them off the beaten track. He had ex- 
plored Cooper’s Creek for white sapphires, the Northern 
Territory for opals, and had once led an expedition into 
German New Guinea in search of diamonds, where he 
had narrowly escaped being eaten by cannibals. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


3i 


The passage of time had not tamed the fierce restless- 
ness of his disposition. Although he was not quite such 
a rover as of yore, the discovery of a new diamond field 
in Brazil, or the news of a new pearl bed in southern 
seas, was sufficient to set him packing for another jaunt 
half round the world. He was the oldest friend of the 
Herediths, and Miss Heredith, in particular, had a high 
opinion of his qualities. Musard, on his part, made no 
secret of the fact that he regarded Miss Heredith as 
the best of living women. It had, indeed, been rumoured 
in the county a quarter of a century before that Vincent 
Musard and Alethea Heredith were “ going to make a 
match of it.” 

It was, perhaps, well for both that the match was never 
made. Musard had departed for one of his tours into the 
wilds of the world, not to return to England until five 
years had elapsed. Their mutual attraction was the 
attraction of opposites. There was nothing in common 
except mutual esteem between a wild, tempestuous being 
like Musard, who rushed through life like a whirl- 
wind, for ever seeking new scenes in primitive parts of 
the earth, and the tranquil mistress of the moat-house, 
who had rarely been outside her native county, and re- 
volved in the same little circle year after year, happy in 
her artless country pursuits and simple pleasures. 

Of late years, Musard had spent most of his brief 
stays in England with the Herediths. He had his own 
home, which was not far from the moat-house, but he 
was a companionable man, and preferred the warm wel- 
come and kindly society of his old friends to the solitary 
existence of a bachelor at Brandreth Hall, as his own 
place was named. , 

He had recently returned to England after a year’s 
wanderings in the southern hemisphere, and had arrived 


32 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


at the moat-house on the previous day, bringing with him 
a dried alligator’s head with gaping jaws, a collection of 
rare stuffed birds and snakeskins for Phil, who had a 
taste in that direction, and a carved tiki god for Miss 
Heredith. He had also brought with him his Chinese 
servant, two kea parrots, and a mat of white feathers 
from the Solorqon Islands, which he used on his bed in- 
stead of an eiderdown quilt when the nights were cold. 
He had left in his London banker’s strong room his latest 
collection of precious stones, after forwarding anony- 
mously to Christie’s a particularly fine pearl as a dona- 
tion towards the British Red Cross necklace. 

Musard’s present stay at the moat-house was to be a 
brief one. The British Government, on learning of his 
return to his native land, had asked him to go over to the 
front to adjust some trouble which had arisen between the 
head-men of a Kaffir labour compound. As Musard’s 
wide knowledge of African tribes rendered him peculiarly 
fitted for such a task, he had willingly complied with 
the request, and was to go to France on the following 
day. 

Miss Heredith had taken advantage of his brief visit 
to consult him about the Heredith pearl necklace — a 
piece of jewellery which was perhaps more famous than 
valuable, as some of the pearls were nearly three hundred 
years old. Sir Philip had given it to Violet when she 
married Phil. But Violet had locked it away in her jewel- 
case and never worn it. She had said, only the night be- 
fore, that the setting of the clasp was old-fashioned, and 
the pearls dull with age. Miss Heredith, although much 
hurt, had realized that there was some truth in the com- 
plaint, and she had asked Musard for his advice. Mus- 
ard had expressed the opinion that perhaps the pearls 
were in need of the delicate operation known as “ skin- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


33 


ning,” and had offered to take the necklace to London 
and obtain the opinion of a Hatton Garden expert of his 
acquaintance. 

Vincent Musard smiled at Miss Heredith in friendly 
fashion as he entered the dining-room, and Sir Philip 
greeted his sister with polite, but somewhat vague cour- 
tesy. Sir Philip’s manner to everybody was distinguished 
by perfect urbanity, which was so impersonal and un- 
varying as to suggest that it was not so much a compliment 
to those upon whom it was bestowed as a duty which he 
felt he owed to himself to perform with uniform ex- 
actitude. 

Musard began to talk about the arrangements for his 
departure the following day, and asked Tufnell about 
the trains. On learning that the first train to London 
was at eight o’clock, he expressed his intention of catch- 
ing it. 

“ Is it necessary for you to go so early, Vincent ? ” 
inquired Miss Heredith. “ Could you not take a later 
train ? ” 

“ I daresay I could. Why do you ask ? ” 

“ I was thinking about the necklace. Violet was too 
unwell to give it to me to-night, and she may not be 
awake so early in the morning. I should like you to take 
it with you, if it could be managed.” 

“ I can take a later train. It will suit me as well.” 

“ Is Violet unable to go with us to the Weynes’ to- 
night ? ” said Sir Philip, glancing at his sister. 

“Yes; her head is too bad.” 

“ It is a pity we have to go without her, as the party 
is given in her honour. Of course, we must go.” 

“Where is her necklace?” asked Musard. “Is it in 
the safe ? ” 


34 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ No,” replied Miss Heredith. “ It is in Violet’s room, 
in her jewel-case.” 

“ Well, as Mrs. Heredith will be alone in the house 
to-night, I think it would be wise if you locked it in the 
safe,” said Musard. “ There are many servants in the 
house.” 

“ I think that is quite unnecessary, Vincent. Our ser- 
vants are all trustworthy.” 

“ Quite so, but several of your guests have brought 
their own servants — maids and valets.” 

“ Very well. If you think so, Vincent, I will see to 
it after dinner.” 

The conversation was terminated by the sound of the 
dinner-gong. The guests came down to dinner in ones 
and twos, and assembled in the drawing-room before pro- 
ceeding to the dining-room. The men who were not in 
khaki were dressed for dinner. The gathering formed 
a curious mixture of modern London and ancient Eng- 
land. The London guests, who were in the majority, 
consisted of young officers, some young men from the 
War Office and the Foreign Office, a journalist or two, 
and the ladies. Miss Heredith had entertained at tea on 
the lawn. These people had been invited because they 
were friends of the young couple, and not because they 
were anybody particular in the London social or political 
world, though one or two of the young men had claims 
in that direction. Mingled with this very modern group 
were half a dozen representatives of old county families, 
who had been invited by Miss Heredith. 

The party sat down to dinner. There were one or two 
murmurs of conventional regret when Miss Heredith ex- 
plained the reason of Mrs. Heredith’s vacant place, but 
the majority of the London guests — particularly the 
female portion — recognized the illness as a subterfuge 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


35 


and accepted it with indifference. If Mrs. Heredith was 
bored with her guests they, on their part, were tired of 
their visit. The house party had not been a success. 
The London visitors found the fixed routine of life in 
a country house monotonous and colourless, and were 
looking forward to the termination of their visit. The 
life they had led for the past fortnight was not their 
way of life. They met each morning for breakfast at 
nine o’clock — Miss Heredith was a stickler for the mid- 
Victorian etiquette of everybody sitting down together at 
the breakfast table. After breakfast the men wandered 
off to their own devices for killing time : some to play 
a round of golf, others to go shooting or fishing, gen- 
erally not reappearing until dinner-time. After dinner 
they played billiards or auction bridge, and the ladies 
knitted war socks or sustained themselves till bedtime 
with copious draughts of the mild stimulant supplied by 
their favourite lady novelists. At half-past ten o’clock 
Tufnell entered with a tray of glasses, and the guests 
partook of a little refreshment. At eleven Miss Here- 
dith bade her visitors a stately good-night, and they re- 
tired to their bedrooms. The great lady of the moat- 
house was a firm believer in the axiom that a woman 
should be mistress in her own household, and she saw 
no reason why her guests should not adopt her way of 
life while under her roof. She was a country woman 
born and bred, believing in the virtues of an early bed 
and early rising, and she was not to be put out of her 
decorous regular way of living by Londoners who turned 
night into day with theatres, late suppers, night clubs, 
and other pernicious forms of amusement which Miss 
Heredith had read about in the London papers. 

Dinner at the moat-house was a solemn and cere- 
monious function. In accordance with the time-hon- 


3 ^ 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


oured tradition of the family, it was served at the early 
hour of seven o’clock in the big dining-room, an ancient 
chamber panelled with oak to the ceiling, with a carved 
buffet, an open fire-place, Jacobean mantelpiece, and old 
family portraits on the walls. There were sconces on 
the walls, and a crystal chandelier for wax candles was 
suspended from the centre of the ceiling above the table. 
The chandelier was never lit, as the moat-house was 
illuminated by electric light, but it looked very pretty, 
and was the apple of Miss Heredith’s eye — as the maid- 
servants were aware, to their cost. 

The dinner that night was, as usual, very simple, as 
befitted a patriotic English household in war-time, but 
the wines made up for the lack of elaborate cooking. 
Sir Philip Heredith and his sister followed their King’s 
example of abstaining from wine during the duration 
of war, but it was not in accordance with Sir Philip’s 
idea of hospitality to enforce abstinence on their guests, 
and the men, at all events, sipped the rare old products 
of the Heredith cellars with unqualified approval, en- 
hanced by painful recollections of the thin war claret and 
sugared ports of London clubs. Such wine, they felt, 
was not to be passed by. Of the young men, Phil Here- 
dith alone drank water, not for the same reason as his 
father, but because he had always been a water drinker. 

Under the influence of the good wine the guests 
brightened up considerably as the meal proceeded. Sir 
Philip, in his old-fashioned way, raised his glass of 
aerated water to one and another of the young men. He 
was an ideal host, and his unfailing polished courtesy hid 
the fact that he was looking forward to the break up of 
the party with a relief akin to that felt by the majority 
of his guests. Conversation had been confined to mono- 
syllables at first, but became quite flourishing and ani- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


3 7 


mated as the dinner went on. Miss Heredith smiled and 
looked pleased. As a hostess, she liked to see her guests 
happy and comfortable, even if she did not like her guests. 

The conversation was mainly about the war : the Allies* 
plans and hopes and fears. Several of the young men 
from London gave their views with great authority, 
criticising campaigns and condemning generals. Phil 
Heredith listened to this group without speaking. Two 
country gentlemen in the vicinity also listened in silence. 
They were amazed to hear such famous military names, 
whom they had been led by their favourite newspapers 
to regard as the hope of the country’s salvation, criticised 
so unmercifully by youngsters. 

“ And do you think the war will soon be over, Mr. 
Brimley?” said a feminine voice, rather loudly, during a 
lull in the conversation. The speaker was a near neigh- 
bour and friend of Miss Heredith’s, Mrs. Spicer, who 
was not a member of the house party, but had been in- 
vited to dinner that night and was going to the Weynes’ 
afterwards. She was stout and fresh-faced, and looked 
thoroughly good-natured and kind-hearted. 

She addressed her question to a tall young man with 
prematurely grey hair, prominent eyes, and a crooked 
nose. His name was Brimley, and he was well-known 
in London, journalism. His portrait occasionally ap- 
peared in the picture papers as “ one of the young lions' 
of Fleet Street,” but his enemies preferred to describe 
him as one of Lord Butterworth’s jackals — Lord But- 
terworth being the millionaire proprietor of an influential 
group of newspapers which, during the war, had stood 
for ” the last drop of blood and the last shilling ” rally- 
ing cry. As one of the foremost of this group of pa- 
triots, Mr. Brimley had let his ink flow so freely in the 
Allies’ cause that it was whispered amongst those “ in 


38 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


the know ” that he was certain for a knighthood, or at 
least an Empire Order, in the next list of honours. 

Mr. Brimley looked at the speaker haughtily, and made 
an inaudible reply. Although he was a lion of Fleet 
Street, he did not relish being called upon to roar in the 
wilds of Sussex. 

“ Won’t the poor German people be delighted when our 
troops march across the Rhine to deliver them from 
militarism,” continued the old lady innocently. 

There was a subdued titter from the younger girls at 
this, and a young officer sitting near the bottom of the 
table laughed aloud, then flushed suddenly at his breach 
of manners. 

“ Have I said something foolish ? ” asked the old lady 
placidly. “ Please tell me if I have — I don’t mind.” 

44 Not at all,” said another young officer, with a beard- 
less sunburnt face. 44 Personally, I quite agree with you. 
The Germans ought to be jolly well pleased to be saved 
from their beastly selves.” 

44 What a number of land girls you have in this part 
of the world, Miss Heredith,” remarked the young of- 
ficer who had laughed, as though anxious to turn the 
conversation. 44 1 saw several while I was out shooting 
to-day, and very charming they looked. I had no idea 
that sunburn was so becoming to a girl’s complexion. I 
saw one girl who had been riding a horse through the 
woods, and she looked like what’s-her-name — Diana. 
She had bits of green stuff sticking all over her, and 
cobwebs in her hair.” 

44 That reminds me of a good story,” exclaimed a 
chubby-faced youth in the uniform of the Flying Corps. 
44 You’ll appreciate it, Denison. Old Graham, of the 
Commissariat, was out golfing the other day, and he 
turned up at the club all covered with cobwebs. Captain 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


39 


Harding, of our lot, who was just back in Blighty from 
eighteen months over there, said to him, ‘ Hullo, Graham, 
I see you’ve been down at the War Office.’ Ha, ha ! ” 

The other young men in khaki joined in the laugh, but 
a tall gaunt man with an authoritative glance, the Denison 
referred to, looked rather angry. Miss Heredith, with 
a hostess’s watchful tact for the suspectibilities of her 
guests, started to talk about a show for allotment hold- 
ers which had been held in the moat-house grounds a 
few weeks before. It seemed that most of the villagers 
were allotment holders, and the show had been held to 
stimulate their patriotic war efforts to increase the na- 
tional food supply. The village had entered into it with 
great spirit, and some wonderful specimens of fruit, 
vegetables, poultry and rabbits had been exhibited. 

“ The best part of it was that Rusher, my own gar- 
dener, was beaten badly in every class,” put in Sir Philip, 
with a smile. 

“ Not in every class,” corrected Miss Heredith. “ The 
peaches and nectarines from the walled garden were 
awarded first prize.” 

“ Rusher was beaten in the vegetable classes — in giant 
vegetable marrows and cabbages,” retorted Sir Philip, 
with a chuckle. “ He hasn’t got over it yet. He sus- 
pects the vicar of favouritism in awarding the prizes. 
The fact that his daughter won first prize for rabbits 
with a giant Belgian did little to console him.” 

“ And we raised quite a respectable sum for the Red 
Cross by charging threepence admission to see a stuffed 
menagerie of Phil’s,” added Miss Heredith. 

“A stuffed menagerie! What a curious thing,” re- 
marked a young lady. 

“ Not quite a menagerie,” said Sir Philip. “ Merely 
the stuffed remains of some animals Phil used to keep 


40 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


as a youngster. When they died — as they invariably 
did — he used to skin them and stuff them. He was 
quite an expert taxidermist.” 

“ Tell them about your museum exhibit, Philip,” said 
Miss Heredith, with quite an animated air. 

“ We also arranged a little exhibition of — er — old 
things,” continued Sir Philip diffidently. “ Armour, 
miniatures, some old jewels, and things like that. That 
also brought in quite a respectable sum for the Red 
Cross.” 

“From the Heredith collection, I presume?” said Mr. 
Brimley. 

“ What wonderful old treasures you must have in this 
wonderful old house of yours,” gushed the young lady 
who had spoken before. “I am so disappointed in not 
seeing the Heredith pearl necklace. What a pity dear 
Mrs. Heredith is ill. She was going to wear the pearls 
to-night, and now I shall have to go away without seeing 
them.” 

Sir Philip bowed. He did not quite relish the trend 
of the conversation, but he was too well-bred to show it. 

“You shall see the pearls in the morning,” said Miss 
Heredith courteously. 

“ I adore pearls,” sighed the guest. 

“If you admire pearls, you should see the collection 
which is being made for the British Red Cross,” re- 
marked Vincent Musard. “ I had a private view the 
other day. It is a truly magnificent collection.” 

All eyes were turned on the speaker. The topic in- 
terested every lady present, and they were aware that 
Musard was one of the foremost living authorities on 
jewels. The men had all heard of the famous traveller 
by repute, and they wanted to listen to what he had to 
say. Musard seemed rather embarrassed to find himself 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


41 


the object of general attention, and went on with his 
dinner in silence. But some of the ladies were deter- 
mined not to lose the opportunity of learning something 
from such a well-known expert- on a subject so dear to 
their hearts, and they plied him with eager questions. 

“ It must be a wonderful collection/’ said a slight and 
slender girl named Garton, with blue eyes and red hair. 
She was a lady journalist attached to Mr. Brimley’s 
paper. Twenty years ago she would have been called 
an advanced woman. She believed in equality for the 
sexes in all things, and wrote articles on war immorality, 
the “ social evil ” and kindred topics in a frank un- 
abashed way which caused elderly old-fashioned news- 
paper readers much embarrassment. Miss Garton was 
just as eager as the more frivolous members of her sex 
to hear about the Red Cross pearls, and begged Mr. 
Musard to give her some details. She would have to 
do a “ write up ” about the necklace when she returned 
to London, she said, and any information from Mr. 
Musard would be so helpful. 

“ It is not a single necklace,” said Musard. “ There 
are about thirty necklaces. The Red Cross committee 
have already received nearly 4,000 pearls, and more are 
coming in every day.” 

“ Four thousand pearls ! ” “ How perfectly lovely ! ” 

“ How I should love to see them ! ” These feminine ex- 
clamations sounded from different parts of the table. 

" I suppose the collection is a very fine and varied 
one?” observed Sir Philip. 

“ Undoubtedly. The committee have had the advice 
of the best experts in London, who have given much 
time to grading the pearls for the different necklaces. 
In an ordinary way it takes a long while — sometimes 
years — to match the pearls for a faultless necklace, 


42 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


but in this case the experts have had such a variety 
brought to their hands that their task has been com- 
paratively easy. But in spite of the skilful manner in 
which the necklaces have been graded, it is even now a 
simple matter for the trained eye to identify a number 
of the individual pearls. The largest, a white pearl of 
pear shape, weighing 72 grains, would be recognized by 
any expert anywhere. There are several other pearls 
over thirty grains which the trained eye would recognize 
with equal ease in any setting. The few pink and black 
pearls are all known to collectors, and it is the same with 
the clasps. One diamond and ruby clasp is as well-known 
in jewel history as the State Crown. The diamonds are 
in the form of a Maltese Cross, set in a circle of rubies.” 

“ That must have been the gift of the Duchess of 
Welburton,” remarked Sir Philip. “ She inherited it 
from her great aunt, Adelina, wife of the third duke. 
There was a famous pearl necklace attached to the clasp 
once, but it disappeared about ten years ago at a ball 
given by the German Ambassador, Prince Litzovny. I 
remember there was a lot of talk about it at the time, 
but the necklace was never recovered. The clasp, too, 
has a remarkable history.” 

“All great jewels have,” said Musard. “In fact, all 
noteworthy stones have dual histories. Their career as 
cut and polished gems is only the second part. Infinitely 
more interesting is the hidden history of each great jewel, 
from the discovery of the rough stone to the period when 
it reaches the hands of the lapidary, to be polished and 
cut for a drawing-room existence. What a record of 
intrigue and knavery, stabbings and poisonings, con- 
nected with some of the greatest jewels in the British 
Crown — the Black Prince’s ruby, for example ! ” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


43 


Musard gazed thoughtfully at the great ruby on his 
own finger as he ceased speaking. The guests had fin- 
ished dinner, and Miss Heredith, with a watchful eye on 
the big carved clock which swung a sedate pendulum by 
the fireplace, beckoned Tufnell to her and directed him 
to serve coffee and liqueurs at table. 

“What is your favourite stone, Mr. Musard?” said 
a bright-eyed girl sitting near him, after coffee had been 
served. 

“ Personally I have a weakness for the ruby,” replied 
Musard. “ Its intrinsic value has been greatly dis- 
counted in these days of synthetic stones, but it is still 
my favourite, largely, I suppose, because a perfect na- 
tural ruby is so difficult to find. I remember once jour- 
neying three thousand miles up the Amazon in search of 
a ruby reputed to be as large as a pigeon’s egg. But it 
did not exist — it was a myth.” 

“ What a life yours has been ! ” said the girl. “ How 
different from the humdrum existence of us stay-at- 
homes! How I should like to hear some of your ad- 
ventures. They must be thrilling.” 

“If you want to hear a real thrilling adventure, Miss 
Finch, you should get Mr. Musard to tell you how he 
came by that ruby he is wearing,” said Phil Heredith, 
joining in the conversation. 

The eyes of all the guests were directed to the ring 
which Musard was wearing on the little finger of his left 
hand. The stone in the plain gold setting was an un- 
usually large one, nearly an inch in length. The stone 
had been polished, not cut, and glowed rather than 
sparkled with a deep rich red — the true “ pigeon’s- 
blood ” tint so admired by connoisseurs. 

“ Nonsense, Phil ” — Musard flushed under his brown 


44 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


skin — “ your guests do not want to hear me talk any 
more about myself. Tve monopolized the conversation 
too long already.” 

“ Oh, please do tell us ! ” exclaimed several of the 
guests. 

“ Really, you know, I’d rather not,” responded Musard, 
in some embarrassment. “ It’s a long story, for one 
thing, and it’s not quite — how shall I express it — it’s 
a bit on the horrible side to relate in the presence of 
ladies.” 

“ I do not think that need deter you,” remarked one 
of the young officers drily. “ We are all pretty strong- 
minded nowadays — since the War.” 

“ Oh, we should love to hear it,” said the lady journal- 
ist, who scented good “ copy.” 14 Shouldn’t we ? ” she 
added, turning to some of the ladies near her. 

“Yes, indeed!” chorused the other ladies. “Do tell 
us.” 

“ Go ahead, Musard — you see you can’t get out of 
it,” said Phil. 

“ Perhaps, Phil, as Mr. Musard does not think it a 
suitable story — ” commenced Miss Heredith tentatively. 
Her eye was fixed anxiously on the clock, which was 
verging on twenty minutes past seven, and she feared 
the relation of her old friend’s experience might make 
them late at the Weynes. But at that moment Tufnell 
approached his mistress and caught her eye. A slight 
shade of annoyance crossed her brow as she listened to 
something he communicated in a low voice, and she 
turned to her guests. 

“ I must ask you to excuse me for a few moments,” 
she said. 

She rose from her place and left the room. As the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


45 


door closed behind her the ladies turned eagerly to 
Musard. 

“ Now, please, tell us about the ruby,” said several 
in unison. 

The explorer glanced at the eager faces looking to- 
wards him. 

“ Very well, I will tell you the story/’ he said quietly, 
but with visible reluctance. 


CHAPTER IV 


“It was before the war. Many strange things have 
happened in the world before the Boche broke loose with 
his dream of ‘ Deutschland uber Alles/ I had been 
to Melville Island trying to match a pearl for the Dev- 
onshire necklace, and I went from the pearl fisheries 
to New Zealand, led there by rumours of the discovery of 
some wonderful black pearls. It was, however, a wild- 
goose chase. These rumours generally are. One of the 
experts of the New Zealand Fishery Department had been 
exploring the Haurakai Gulf, and returned to Auckland 
with a number of black pearls, which he had found in an 
oyster-bed on one of the Barrier Islands. He thought 
his fortune was made, though, being a fishery expert, 
he ought to have known better. They were black pearls 
right enough, but they came from edible oysters, and were 
valueless as jewels — not worth a shilling each. 

“ I put up at the Royal hotel, Auckland, waiting for 
a ship to take me back to England. I had arranged to 
return round the Cape, to look at a parcel of diamonds 
which were expected to arrive at Capetown from the 
fields in about six weeks’ time. The day before I was 
due to sail, a rough-looking man named Moynglass, a 
miner, came to the hotel to see me. He had heard of 
me as a mining expert, and he had a business proposition 
which he wanted to place before me. 

“ He told me he and four others had just returned to 
Auckland after putting in six weeks among the volcanic 
beaches of the North Island, searching — ‘fossicking/ 
he called it — for fine gold. These black sand volcanic 
46 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


47 

beaches are common in parts of New Zealand. The 
black sand is derived from the crystals of magnetic iron, 
and there is frequently a fair amount of fine gold mingled 
with them. By the continued action of the surf the 
heavier materials, gold, and ironstone sand, are mingled 
together between high and low water mark, and what ap- 
pears as a stratum of black sand is found on the surface 
or buried under the ordinary sand. The gold is usually 
very fine, and the trouble of sifting and collecting it is 
great. A man works for wages, and hard-earned wages 
at that, who goes in for this kind of mining. But your 
true miner is ever an adventurer and a gambler, and gold 
thus won is dearer to his heart than gold which might be 
earned with less effort and more regularity in the form 
of sovereigns. You see, there is always the chance of 
a big find. 

“ Moynglass and his party had met with fair success 
along the beaches, but they wanted more than that. 
Moynglass was anxious to trace the fine gold to its source, 
and find a fortune. He believed, like most miners, that 
this fine gold is carried along the beds of the larger rivers 
and distributed by the action of the sea along the differ- 
ent beaches where it is found. His theory was that if 
the drift of the gold sands could be traced to their source, 
a great quartz reef would be found which would make 
the discoverers wealthy men. But he and his mates knew 
nothing about geology, and they wanted somebody to go 
with them who could chart the course, and lead them to 
the launching point of the gold. 

“ I had heard this theory before, and was not im- 
pressed by it. I should probably have turned down 
Moynglass’s proposition if, in the course of his conver- 
sation, he had not produced a sample of ruby quartz 
from his pocket and showed it to me. He said he had 


48 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


found it while exploring one of the rivers of the Urewera 
country. I examined the quartz attentively. It was 
emery rock, and imbedded in the pale green mass were 
ruby crystals, and true Oriental rubies at that. I real- 
ized the valuable nature of the discovery, and questioned 
the man closely as to where he had obtained the ruby 
rock, but he became instantly suspicious, and guarded in 
his replies. If I joined his party — well and good: he 
would show me the spot, and we would share and share 
alike, but he would tell me nothing otherwise. 

“ I decided to go, and the terms were agreed upon. 
We set out from Auckland, the five of us, a week later. 
We went by coastal steamer to a little port in the Bay 
of Plenty, and there we plunged into the Urewera 
Mountains. My companions thought of nothing but the 
search for the source of the golden sands, but I was 
interested only in the ruby rock. There lay the fortune, 
if I could find it. I carried the specimen of corundum 
in my waistcoat pocket. 

“ The river we were ascending to its source was called 
the Araheoa. It was a rushing, noisy torrent, winding 
along a deep and narrow gorge, which in places almost 
met overhead. Some patches of olivine and serpentine 
encouraged me to think that we should find a heavy belt 
of the rock somewhere along the upper part of the valley, 
but my hopes were not realized. Day after day passed, 
and I found no more of it. When my companions washed 
the sands of likely stretches of river beach for fine gold, 
I examined the waste for corundum crystals, but I found 
no signs of them. 

“ We followed the river until we reached an inacces- 
sible mountain gorge which seemed to bar our further 
progress. But, by diverting our course some miles to the 
northward, we were able to ascend to the upper reaches 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


49 


of the river, and, here, to my delight, I found the banks 
and rapids studded with great green masses of olivine 
rocks. 

“ I was anxious to examine these rocks, which ex- 
tended up the mountain side, and my companions agreed 
with me that it was advisable to leave the bed of the 
river for the spur of the mountains where the river ap- 
parently took its rise. We crossed the stream, and com- 
menced a gradual but oblique ascent of the spur. But 
after climbing for some hours we found our further prog- 
ress stopped by a wide and deep gully, a sinister place, 
full of masses of dark green rocks. At the foot of one 
of the largest of these rocks we came across a large hole 
descending almost perpendicularly into the earth. 

“ We lit our lamps and descended. After some 
scrambling we found ourselves on a landing-place, from 
which another low passage of an easier gradient led into 
a large cave in the solid rock. 

“ The 'surface underneath our feet was covered with 
a dust so fine that it slipped from beneath us like sand, 
and rose in thick clouds about us. The cave was high 
enough to walk upright in, and seemed to run a great 
distance, with many lateral passages and smaller recesses 
off the principal chamber. Moynglass entered one of 
these passages and disappeared from view. A few 
moments afterwards we heard him, in a very excited 
voice, calling us to follow him. 

“ We proceeded stooping, in Indian file, down the 
passage, and found Moynglass in a smaller cave at the 
end of it, staring intently at something which was at 
first difficult to see in the gloom. Then, by the light of our 
lamps, we made out a sapling sticking up between two 
rocks, with a withered human hand impaled on it by a 
rusty sheath knife. 


50 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“As I was examining it, one of my companions, who 
had been exploring the cave, gave a cry of astonishment 
which caused me to look round. In a corner of the cave, 
revealed by his lamp, lay two skeletons side by side. The 
hand of one skeleton was missing, and in the eye of the 
other there gleamed a large uncut ruby. We examined 
the skeletons and searched the cave, but found nothing 
to throw any light on the mystery or reveal any clue 
of identity. There was not a vestige of food or clothing 
around the remains, and not a scrap of writing — only 
the two crumbling skeletons, the sapling, the sheath 
knife, and the ruby. 

“ What had brought about such a tragedy in the dim 
recesses of that prehistoric cave? Who could say? 
Perhaps the men had been prospecting together, and one 
had found the ruby and hidden in the cave, where his 
companion had found him and cut off his right hand 
with some primitive idea, of making his vengeance fit 
the crime. Then, perhaps, they had been unable to es- 
cape from the cave, and had died together of thirst and 
hunger. But what is the use of speculating? The 
secret must ever remain hidden in the cave where the 
skeletons still lie. ,, 

Musard stopped abruptly, and sat staring straight in 
front of him. His strange eyes had a fixed look, as if 
gazing into the distance. His brown hand rested lightly 
on the white tablecloth, and the great ruby on his little 
finger gleamed fitfully in the light. 

“ You haven’t told us all the story yet,” said Phil 
Heredith quietly. 

The other looked doubtfully at the ring of intent 
faces regarding him. “ I left that part untold for a good 
reason,” he admitted. “ It is — well, I thought it a little 
bit too horrible to relate.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


51 


“ Oh, do tell us,” said the lady journalist en- 
thusiastically. “We are all dying to hear it. It is such 
an unusual and exciting story that it would be cruel to 
leave us in suspense about the end.” 

“ Very well, then,” said Musard, as the other ladies 
chorused their approval. “ We left the cave, and 
Moynglass, who considered himself the leader of the ex- 
pedition, put the ruby in his pocket. That night we 
camped at a wild desolate spot, not far from the edge 
of a cliff about two hundred feet high, at the foot of 
which the bitter sulphurous waters of the river flowed 
into a chasm. In the morning we found Moynglass lying 
dead in his blanket, with the rusty sheath knife he had 
brought away from the cave sticking in his breast. The 
ruby was gone, and, so, also, was the eldest member of 
our party — an elderly dark-faced Irishman named 
Doyne, who, the previous day, ha’d angrily disputed 
Moynglass’s right to carry the ruby. 

“ We searched for Doyne all that day, but could find 
no trace of him. The next day we tracked across a 
glacier-like expanse littered with large blocks of sand- 
stone. It was a grim spot. A horrible, stony, treeless 
waste which might have been the birthplace of the earth 
and the scene of Creation — a tableland between great 
mountains, full of masses of rhodonite contorted into 
grotesque shapes of stone images; a place where our 
lightest whispers came shouting back out of the profound 
stillness from the huge castellated black rocks bristling 
on the edge of a precipice which slit the valley from 
end to end. 

“ It was there we found Doyne, staggering along the 
lip of the gorge. He had gone mad in the solitude, and 
was wandering along bareheaded, tossing his arms in the 
air as he walked. When I saw him I thought of Cain 


52 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


trying to escape from the wrath of God after killing 
Abel. He saw us as soon as we saw him, and started 
to run. We set out in pursuit, but he fled with great 
speed, leaping from rock to rock like a mountain goat. 
He was getting away from us when he slipped and fell 
into the chasm with a loud cry. We found a path down 
the precipice and descended, and discovered him at the 
foot, battered to death, with the ruby clutched in his 
hand. That ended the expedition. The others insisted 
on returning to the coast without delay, and when we 
arrived there they gladly sold their shares in the ruby to 
me. 

There was rather a long silence when the explorer had 
finished his narration. The long hand of the clock on 
the mantelpiece was creeping past the half-hour, but the 
circle round the dining-room table had been so en- 
thralled by the story that nobody had noted the passage 
of time. 

“ What a ghastly adventure, Mr. Musard ! ” began one 
of the ladies, with a mirthless little laugh. “ Did you 
never discover anything more about the two dead men 
in the cave ? ” 

“ No,” replied Musard. “ As I said, there were no 
papers or any clue to throw light on their identity. The 
skeletons must have lain there for many years, for the 
bones were crumbling into decay.” 

“You have never revisited the spot?” asked Sir 
Philip. 

“ I was in the Ureweras two years later with a Maori 
guide, investigating copper deposits for the New Zea- 
land Government, but I did not go back to the valley.” 

“ Would it not have been possible to give the poor 
things — the skeletons, I mean — Christian burial ? ” 
Mrs. Spicer asked timidly. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


53 


‘ It was impossible to dig a grave in the solid rock. 
Besides, they have a sepulchre of Nature’s which will 
outlast any human grave,” replied Musard. 

“ The thing that puzzles me is how the ruby got into 
the skeleton’s eye,” remarked the lady journalist mu- 
singly. “If that was the skeleton of the man who killed 
the other for stealing the ruby, who placed the ruby 
where you found it? Obviously, he could not have done 
it himself, for it must have been put there after death. 
Who, then, could it have been ? ” 

“ I have no idea,” said Musard, in a tone which sug- 
gested that he did not care to discuss the subject further. 

“ May I look at the ring ? ” Miss Garton asked. 

Musard drew it off his finger and handed it to her in 
silence. The others wanted to see it, so it was passed 
from hand to hand round the table, to the accompaniment 
of many admiring comments on the size and beauty of 
the stone. One of the young officers, with an air of much 
interest, asked Musard whether he thought there were 
other rubies like it to be found near the spot. 

“ Hardly in that form,” replied Musard. “ It is a 
puzzle to me how the men who found the ruby managed 
to get it out of the ruby rock and partially polish it. 
They had no tools or instruments of any kind — at least, 
we found none in the cave. Undoubtedly there are 
rubies in that part of the world. It was near the valley 
that Moynglass found his sample of corundum, with a 
ruby crystal in it. On our way back, at the head of 
the valley, I came across a belt of magnesian rocks 
charged with ores of copper and iron, and probably con- 
taining the matrix of ruby crystals.” 

“ I wonder you wear the thing,” said the chubby-faced 
youth of the Flying Corps, handing the ring across the 
table to the explorer. 


54 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“Why not?” asked Musard. 

“ Well, I wouldn’t care to wear a ring found in a 
skeleton’s head. I should expect the old bus to flop 
to the ground while I was doing a stunt, if I had a 
thing like that on my finger. Aren’t you frightened of 
being haunted by the original owner ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” replied Musard indifferently. 
“ There’s a horrible history attached to most jewels, if 
it comes to that. I am not superstitious.” He replaced 
the ring on his finger, and added thoughtfully: “.I sup- 
pose many people would regard it in that light — as a grim 
sort of relic. Certainly, I shall never forget the valley 
of rocks where we found it. It was the strangest place 
I have ever seen — a 4 waste howling wilderness.’ And 
sometimes I fancy I can still hear the cry Doyne gave as 
he slipped or jumped from one of the black rocks into 
space. I remember how it came ringing back from the 
cliffs a hundred times repeated. It was — ” 

He broke off suddenly, as a scream pealed through the 
moat-house — a wild shrill cry, which, coming from some- 
where overhead, seemed to fill the dining-room with the 
shuddering, despairing intensity of its appeal. It was 
the shriek of a woman in terror. 

The ladies at the dinner table regarded one another 
with frightened eyes and blanched faces. 

“What was that?” several of them whispered to- 
gether. 

“ It came from Violet’s room ! My God, what has 
happened ? ” exclaimed Phil. He sprang to his feet in 
agitation and pushed back his chair. His face was white, 
his mouth drawn, and he fumbled at his throat with a 
shaking hand, as though the pressure of his collar im- 
peded his breathing. Musard rose from the table and 
walked to where the young man was standing. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


55 

“ Don’t get upset needlessly, Phil,” he said soothingly, 
placing a hand on his shoulder. 

Sir Philip had also risen from his seat, and for the 
briefest possible space the three men stood thus, facing 
each other, as if uncertain how to act. Then the tense 
silence of the dining-room was broken by the loud report 
of a firearm. 

“ Let me go ! ” cried Phil shrilly, shaking off Musard’s 
arm. He turned and limped rapidly towards the door, 
and as he did so his infirmity of body was apparent. 
One of his legs was several inches shorter than the other, 
and he wore a high boot. 

Musard reached the door before him in a few rapid 
strides, and Sir Philip came hurrying after his son. 
The rest of the male guests followed, flocking towards the 
door in a body. 

The first sight that Musard’s eye fell upon as he passed 
through the doorway was the figure of Miss Heredith, 
rapidly descending the staircase. By the hall light he 
could see that her face was pale and agitated. She walked 
swiftly up to her old friend, and laid a trembling hand on 
his arm. 

“Oh, Vincent, I was just coming for you — some- 
thing terrible must have happened ! ” she began, in a 
broken, sobbing voice. “ I was going upstairs to my 
room, when I heard the scream, and then the shot. 
They must have come from Violet’s room. Will you go 
up and see, Vincent?” 

Musard did not wait for her concluding words. He 
was already mounting the staircase, taking two or three 
of the broad shallow stairs in his stride. Phil hobbled 
after him, and Sir Philip and some of the guests strag- 
gled up in their wake. 


CHAPTER V 


A shaded light in an alcove at the head of the stairs 
threw a dim light down the passage which led off the 
first-floor landing, but Musard felt for the electric switch 
and pressed it. The light flooded an empty corridor, 
with the door of the room nearest to him gaping into a 
dark interior. 

Musard stepped inside the open door, struck a match 
to find the switch, and walked over and turned on the 
light. As he did so, Phil and his father reached the 
door and followed him into the room, where, less than 
two hours before, Miss Heredith had been with Phil’s 
young wife, and left her to sleep. The room seemed as 
it had been then ; there was no sign of any intruder. The 
cut-glass and silver bottles stood on the small table by the 
head of the bed ; the gold cigarette case was open along- 
side them; a novel, flung face downward on the pillows, 
revealed a garish cover and the bold lettering of the 
title — “What Shall it Profit?” — as though the book 
had dropped from the hand of some one overcome by 
sleep. But the white rays of the electric globe, hanging 
in a shade of rose colour directly overhead, fell with 
sinister distinctness on the slender figure of the young 
wife, lying in a huddled heap on the bed, her fashionable 
rest gown stained with blood, which oozed from her 
breast in a sluggish stream on the satin quilt. A sharp, 
pungent odour was mingled with the heavy atmosphere 
of the room — the smell of a burning fabric. There was 
no disorder, no weapon, no indication of a struggle. Only 
the motionless, bleeding figure on the bed revealed to the 
56 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


57 


guests clustering outside the room that somebody had 
entered and departed as silently as a tiger. 

Musard went swiftly to the bedside and bent over the 
girl. 

4 She has been shot,” he said, in a tone which was 
little more than a whisper. 

“ She has been murdered ! ” It was Phil, pressing 
close behind Musard, who uttered these words. “ Mur- 
dered ! ” he cried, in an unnatural voice, which was 
dreadful to hear. He made a few steps in the direction 
of the bed with his arms outstretched, then stopped, and, 
swinging round, faced the guests who were thronging the 
corridor outside. “ Murdered, I say ! ” he repeated. 
'* Where is the murderer ? ” 

He stood for a moment, fixing a wild eye on the group 
of frightened faces in the doorway, as though seeking 
the murderer among them. Then his face became dis- 
torted, and he fell to the ground. His limbs seemed to 
grow rigid as he lay ; his legs were extended stiffly, the up- 
per part of his arms were pressed against his breast, but 
the forearms inclined forward, with the palms of the hand 
thrown back, and the fingers wide apart. Even in his 
unconsciousness he looked as though he were warding 
off the horror of the sight which had stricken him to 
the ground. 

In the presence of domestic calamity human nature 
betrays its inherent weakness. At such times the arti- 
ficial outer covering of civilization falls away, and the soul 
ostands forth, stark, primitive, forlorn, and cries aloud. 
The strain of the tremendous tragedy which had entered 
his house, swift-footed and silent, was too much for Sir 
Philip. He sank on his knees by the side of his uncon- 
scious son, whimpering like a child — a weak and help- 
less old man. There was no trace of the dignity of the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


58 

Herediths or pride of race in the wrinkled face, now 
distorted with the pitiful grin of senility, as Sir Philip 
crouched over his son, stroking his face with feeble 
fingers. 

One or two of the women in the passage became 
hysterical. The young men looked on awkwardly, with 
grave faces, not knowing what to do. There was some- 
thing very English in their shy aloofness; in their dis- 
like of intruding in the room unasked. 

Musard, looking round from the bedside, glanced 
briefly at the prostrate figure of Phil, and then his gleam- 
ing eyes travelled to the group at the doorway. He, at 
all events, was calm, and master of himself. 

“ The ladies had better go downstairs,” he said, speak- 
ing in a subdued voice, but with decision. “ They can 
do no good here. And will you two ” — he singled out 
two of the young men with his eye — “ carry Phil down- 
stairs? He has only fainted. Please take Sir Philip 
away also. Telephone for Dr. Holmes immediately, and 
send for Sergeant Lumbe. And some of you young men 
search the house thoroughly — at once. No, not this 
room. Search the house from top to bottom, and the 
grounds outside. Be quick! There is no time to be 
lost.” 

The group in the doorway melted away. The ladies, 
pale-faced and weeping, went downstairs together like a 
flock of frightened birds, and the young men, only too 
glad to obey somebody who showed nerve and resolution 
at such a moment, dispersed at once to search the house. 

Musard was left in the room alone, but not for long. 
Miss Heredith entered from the corridor almost im- 
mediately. Tufnell accompanied her to the door, but 
stopped there, with staring eyes directed towards the 
bed. Miss Heredith’s face was drawn, but she had re- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


59 

covered her self-control. She walked quickly towards 
Musard, who was still bending over the bed. 

“ Vincent ! ” she cried. “ In pity’s name tell me 
what dreadful thing has happened? They have carried 
Phil downstairs, and they tried to detain me, but I 
broke away from them and came straight to you. Is 
Violet — ” 

Musard sprang to his feet at the first sound of her 
voice, and wheeled round swiftly, as if trying to impose 
his body between her and the figure on the bed. 

“ Go back, Alethea ! ” he sternly commanded. “ Go 
back, I say ! This is no sight for you, and you can do 
no good.” 

He still sought to intercept her as she approached, but 
she gently put aside his detaining hand, and, walking to 
the bedside, looked down. Then, at that sight, her fin- 
gers sought for his with an impulsive feminine move- 
ment, and held them tight. 

“Do not be afraid for me,” she whispered. “See! 
I am calm — I may be able to help. Is she — dead? ” 

“ Dying,” said Musard sadly. 

“ Is it. . . . ? ” her voice dropped to nothingness, but 
her frightened eyes, travelling fearfully into the shadowy 
corners of the big bedroom, completed the unspoken 
sentence. 

Musard understood her, and bowed his head silently. 
Then, turning his face to the door, he beckoned Tufnell 
to approach. The old servant advanced tremblingly into 
the room, vainly endeavouring to compose his horror- 
stricken face into a semblance of the impassive mask of 
the well-trained English servant. 

“ Go downstairs and get me some hot water,” said 
Musard quietly. “ Look sharp — and bring it yourself. 
I do not want any maidservants here to go into hysterics.” 


6o 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


Tufnell hastened away. Musard resumed his place 
at the bedside, silently watching the figure on the bed. 
There was blood on his hands and clothes. 

“ Is there no hope ? Can nothing be done to save 
her?” whispered Miss Heredith. 

“ Nothing. The lung is penetrated. She is bleeding 
to death.” 

His quick eye noticed a change in the figure on the bed. 
The face quivered ever so slightly, and the blue eyes half 
opened. Then the stricken girl made an effort as though 
she wanted to sit up, but a sudden convulsion seized her, 
and she fell back on her pillow, with one little white 
hand, glittering with rings, flung above her head, as if 
she died in the act of invoking the retribution of a God 
of justice on the assassin who had blotted out her young 
life in agony and horror. 

“ She is dead,” said Musard gently. “ This is a ter- 
rible business, and our first duty is to try and capture the 
monster who committed this foul crime.” 

They stood there in silence for a moment, looking 
earnestly at one another. Outside, somewhere in the 
woodland, there sounded the haunting gush of a night- 
bird’s song, shivering through the quietness like a silver 
bell. The sweet note finished in a frightened squawk, 
and was followed by the cry of an owl. The song had 
betrayed the singer. 

Musard turned away from Miss Heredith, and walked 
restlessly around the bedroom, scanning the heavy pieces 
of furniture and the faded hangings, and peering into 
every nook and corner, as if seeking for the murderer’s 
place of concealment. A roomy old wardrobe near the 
window attracted his eye, and he stopped in front of it 
and flung its doors open. It contained some articles of 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 61 

the dead girl’s apparel — costumes and frocks — hanging 
on hooks. 

His eye wandered to the window, shrouded in the 
heavy folds of the damask curtains. He walked over to 
it, and drew the curtains aside. The bottom half of the 
window was wide open. 

Miss Heredith, who was following his movements 
closely, gave vent to a faint cry of surprise. 

“ The window ! ” she exclaimed. 

Musard looked round inquiringly. 

“ The window — what of it ? ” he asked. 

44 It was closed when I came in here before dinner to 
see Violet.” 

44 You are quite sure of that?” 

“ Oh, yes ! At least, I think so.” 

44 1 do not understand you.” 

44 1 mean that the atmosphere of the room was heavy 
and thick, as if the window had not been opened all day.” 

44 It has been a still, close day.” 

44 But Violet never had a window open if she could help 
it. She disliked fresh air. She was always afraid of 
catching cold.” 

Musard looked out of the window into the velvet dark- 
ness of the night. 

44 If the window was closed before, the murderer has 
opened it and escaped through it,” he said. 

44 It is hardly^ possible.” 

44 Why not?” He turned round and faced her. 

44 The ground falls on that side. The'window is nearly 
twenty feet from the ground And — there is the moat to 
be crossed. There is no bridge on that side of the house, 
and this window opens on the garden. Don’t you re- 
member ? ” 


62 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ I remember now.” 

44 I thought you would.” 

“ Still — ” Musard broke off abruptly, and walked 
away from the window. 

Near the window stood the dressing-table. The swing 
oval mirror reflected its contents — ivory brushes, silver 
hand mirrors, all the costly bijoutry of a refined woman's 
toilet. Among them stood Violet's silver jewel-case. 
Musard strode over and examined the case. It was 
locked. 

44 This ought to be put away,” he said. 

44 1 was coming up to get it when I heard the scream,” 
whispered his companion. 

44 Perhaps you will take charge of it now,” he said, 
placing it in her hands. As he did so there flashed across 
his mind the cynical appropriateness of the old proverb 
about locking doors after stolen steeds. 

There was a restraint and lack of spontaneity about 
their conversation of which both were acutely conscious. 
The note was forced, as though from too great an effort 
to strike the right key. A curious psychological change 
had swept over both since they stood together by the 
bedside of the dying woman. It had come with the en- 
try of death. They conversed hurriedly and guardedly, 
as if they mistrusted each other. In each of them two 
entities were now apparent — a surface consciousness, 
which talked and acted mechanically, and a secondary 
inner consciousness, watchful, and fearful of misinter- 
pretation of the spoken word. The faculties which make 
up the human mind are different and complex, and mys- 
teriously blended. It may be that when tragedy upsets 
the frail structure of human life the brute instincts of 
watchfulness and self-preservation come uppermost, 
guarding against chance suspicion, or the loud word 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


63 


of accusation. Perhaps through Musard’s mind was 
passing the thought of the strange manner in which the 
murder had been committed, and how he, by detaining 
everybody downstairs at the dinner table while he told 
his story had been an instrument in its accomplish- 
ment. 

The situation was terminated by the arrival of Tufnell 
with some hot water. Almost on his heels came the 
young men who had been searching the house. Musard 
was relieved by their return, though his impassive face 
did not reveal his feelings. Miss Heredith left the room 
with Tufnell, taking the jewel-case with her. Musard 
met the young men at the threshold. 

The tall young officer with the sunburnt face, Major 
Gardner, informed Musard that they had completed a 
search of the house from top to bottom, but had found 
nothing. They had also searched the grounds, without 
result. 

“ Mrs. Heredith is dead,” Musard gravely informed 
them. “ She died while you have been searching for the 
miscreant who fired the shot we heard at the dinner 
table. Gentlemen, he must be found. It seems hardly 
possible that he has succeeded in getting clear away in 
so short a time.” 

44 We have searched the place from top to bottom,” 
remarked one of the young men. 

“ It is a strange, rambling old place, and difficult to 
explore unless you know it thoroughly,” said Musard. 

44 We have done the best we could.” 

44 1 do not doubt it, but there are many old nooks and 
corners in which a man might hide.” 

44 His first thought, after such a dreadful crime, would 
be to get away as quickly as possible,” said Major Gard- 
ner. 


6 4 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ But how did he escape? Certainly not by the stair- 
case, because we rushed out from the dining-room 
directly we heard the shot, and we should have caught 
him on his way down.” 

“Is there not a window in the bedroom? Could he 
not have escaped that way ? ” 

“ The window is nearly twenty feet from the ground.” 

“ An athletic man might jump that distance,” remarked 
Major Gardner thoughtfully. 

“ I still think it possible he may be concealed about 
the premises,” replied Musard. “ There is an old un- 
used staircase at the end of this passage, which opens 
on the south side of the moat-house. Did you find it? 
It shuts with a door at the top, and might easily have 
escaped your notice.” 

“ I opened the door and went down the staircase,” 
said the young flying officer. “ Nobody could have es- 
caped that way. The door at the bottom is locked, afid 
there is no key.” 

The scared face of a maidservant at that moment ap- 
peared at the head of the stairs. 

“If you please, sir,” she said, addressing Musard, 
“ one of the gentlemen downstairs sent me up to tell you 
that he has been trying for the last ten minutes to ring 
up the police, but he can’t get an answer.” 

“ Send the butler to me at once.” 

The maid disappeared, and in another moment the 
butler came hurriedly up the stairs. 

“ Tufnell,” said Musard quickly, “ you must go at 
once to the village and get Sergeant Lumbe and Dr. 
Holmes. Hurry off, and be as quick as you can. And 
now, gentlemen,” he added, turning to the others, “let 
us go downstairs. While we are waiting for the police 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


65 


I will help you make another search of the house and 
grounds. The murderer may escape while we stand here 
talking. We have wasted too much valuable time al- 
ready.” 


CHAPTER VI 


The butler left the moat-house at a brisk pace which 
became almost a run after he crossed the moat bridge. 
His way across the park lay along the carriage drive, 
bordered by an avenue of tall trees, between an orna- 
mental lake and some thick game covers, and then 
through the outer fields to the village. 

It was a soft and mellow September night, with a 
violet sky overhead sprinkled with silver. But a touch 
of autumn decay was in the air, which was heavy and 
still, and a white mist was rising in thick, sluggish clouds 
from the green, stagnant surface of the lake. The wood 
was veiled in blackness, in which the trunks of the trees 
were just visible, standing in straight, regular rows, like 
soldiers at attention. 

Tufnell hurried along this lonely spot, casting timid 
glances around him. He was not a nervous man at 
ordinary times, but like many country people, he had 
a vein of superstition running through his phlegmatic 
temperament, and the events of the night had swept 
away his calmness. The croaking of the frogs and the 
whispering of the trees filled him with uneasiness, and 
he kept glancing backwards and forwards from the lake 
to the wood, as though he feared the murderer might 
suddenly appear from the misty surface of the one or 
the dim recesses of the other. 

He had almost reached the confines of the wood when 
he was startled by a loud whirr, which he recognized as 
the flight of a covey of partridges from a cover close 
at hand. What had startled them? Glancing fearfully 
around him he saw, or thought he saw, the crouching 

66 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


6 7 

figure of a man in one of the bypaths of the wood, partly 
hidden by the thick branches which stretched across the 
path a short distance from the drive. 

Tufnell’s first impulse was to take to his heels, but 
he was saved from this ignominious act by the timely 
recollection that he was an Englishman, whose glorious 
privilege it is to be born without fear. So he stood still, 
and in a voice which had something of a quaver in it, 
called out: 

“ Who is there ? ” 

In the wood a bird gave a single call like the note of 
a flute, the wind murmured in the tall avenue of trees, 
a frog splashed in the still waters of the lake, but there 
was no sound of human life. Glancing cautiously into 
the wood, the butler could no longer see anything 
crouching in the path. The man — if it had been a 
man — had vanished. 

“ It may have been my fancy/’ muttered the butler, 
speaking aloud as though to reassure himself by hear- 
ing his own voice. 

He walked quickly onward, and was relieved when 
he had left the wood behind him, and could see the faint 
lights of the village twinkling beyond the fields. Cross- 
ing a footbridge which spanned a narrow stream at the 
bottom of the meadows, Tufnell climbed over a stile, and 
walked along the road on the other side until he reached 
a cottage standing some distance back from the road at 
the summit of a gentle slope. Tufnell ascended the slope 
and knocked loudly at the cottage door. 

After the lapse of a few moments the door was opened 
by a woman with a candle in her hand — a stout coun- 
trywoman of forty, with a curved nose, prominent teeth, 
and hair screwed up in a tight knob at the back of her 
head. Her small grey eyes, scanning the visitor at the 


68 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


door, showed both surprise and deference. The butler 
of the moat-house was not in the habit of mixing with 
the villagers, and by them he was accounted something 
of a personage. He not only shone with the reflected 
glory of the big house, but was respected on his own 
merit as a “ snug ” man, who had saved money, and 
had a little property of his own. 

“Is your husband at home, Mrs. Lumbe?” he asked, 
in response to her mute glance of inquiry. He spoke 
condescendingly, like a man who recognized the social 
gulf between them, but believed in being polite to the 
lower orders. 

“Yes, he is in, Mr. Tufnell. Will you come inside?” 

The butler rubbed his boots carefully on the doormat, 
and followed the woman down a narrow passage to a 
small sitting-room at the end of it, where a man was 
sitting, reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe. 

“ Robert,” said the woman, “ here is Mr. Tufnell to 
see you.” 

The man looked up from his newspaper in some sur- 
prise, and got up to greet his visitor. He was not in 
uniform, and his rough, ungainly figure and round red 
face revealed the countryman, but from the crown of his 
close-cropped bullet head to his thick-soled boots he 
looked like a rural policeman. There was an awkward 
pose about him as he stood up — a clumsy effort to main- 
tain the semblance of an official dignity. The question- 
ing look his ferret eyes cast at the butler through the 
haze of tobacco smoke which filled the room indicated 
his impression that the visit was not merely a neighbourly 
call. Tufnell did not leave him in doubt on the point. 

“ You are wanted at the moat-house at once, Sergeant 
Lumbe,” he said gravely. “ A terrible crime has been 
committed. Mrs. Heredith has been murdered.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


69 


*' Murdered ! ” ejaculated the sergeant, looking vacantly 
across the table at his wife, who had given vent to a 
cry of horror. “ Murdered ! ” he repeated, as though 
seeking to assure himself of the truth of the butler's 
statement by a repetition of the word. 

" Yes. She was shot in her bedroom a little while ago 
while the other guests were at dinner. You must come 
at once." 

Sergeant Lumbe laid his pipe on the table with a tremb- 
ling hand. He was overwhelmed by the magnitude of 
the catastrophe, and hardly knew what to do. His 
previous experience of crime was confined to an oc- 
casional arrest of the village drunkard, who invariably 
went with him confidingly. His eye wandered to a book- 
case in the corner of the room, as if he would have liked 
to consult a “ Police Code ” which was prominently dis- 
played on one of the shelves. Apparently he realized 
the indignity of such a course in the presence of a mem- 
ber of the public, so he turned to Tufnell and said: 

“ I'll go with you, but I must first put on my tunic." 

44 Be as quick as you can," said the butler, taking a 
chair. 

Sergeant Lumbe went into an inner room, where his 
wife followed him. Tufnell heard them whispering as 
they moved about. Then Sergeant Lumbe hastily 
emerged buttoning his tunic. There was an eager look 
on his face. 

44 The wife has been saying that we ought to take her 
brother along," he said. 44 He belongs to Scotland Yard. 
He’s spending his holidays with us." 

44 Where is he? ” asked Tufnell, impressed by the magic 
of the name of Scotland Yard. 

44 He's just stepped over to the Fox and Knot to have 
a game of billiards, finding it a bit lonesome here, after 


70 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


London. Do you think we might send for him and take 
him with us ? ” 

“ I think it would be a very good idea,” said Tufnell. 
“ But can he be got at once ? ” he added, with a glance 
at the little clock on the mantelpiece. “ The sooner we 
return the better.” 

“ The wife can bring him while I am changing my 
boots. Hurry down to the Fox , Maggie, and tell Tom 
he’s wanted at once.” 

“ Don’t tell him what it’s for until you get him out- 
side,” hastily counselled the butler as the policeman’s 
wife was departing on her errand. “ Sir Philip won’t 
like it if he hears that what happened to-night was dis- 
cussed in the Fox taproom.” 

The little clock on the mantelpiece had barely ticked 
off five additional minutes when Mrs Lumbe returned 
in a breathless state, accompanied by a young man with 
billiard chalk on his coat and hands. 

“ This is my brother, Detective Caldew,” said Mrs. 
Lumbe, between pants, to the butler. “ I told him about 
the murder, and we hurried back as fast as we could.” 

“ It’s a horrible crime, and we must lose no time while 
there is still a chance of catching the murderer,” said 
the young man, regaining his breath more easily than 
his stout sister. He brushed the billiard chalk off his 
clothes as he spoke. “ Let us go at once.” 

Tufnell cast a curious glance at the new-comer. He 
saw a man of about thirty-five, tall, well-built and dark, 
with a clean-shaven face and rather intelligent eyes un- 
der thick dark brows. He had some difficulty in recog- 
nizing Detective Caldew as the village urchin of a score 
of years before who had touched his cap to the moat- 
house butler as a great personage, second only in im- 
portance to Sir Philip Heredith himself. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


7i 


Tufnell was not aware that in the former village boy 
who had become a London detective he was in the pres- 
ence of a young man of soaring ambition. Caldew had 
gone to London fifteen years before with the idea of 
bettering himself. After tramping the streets of the 
metropolis for some months in a vain quest for work, 
he had enlisted in the metropolitan police force rather 
than return to his native village and report himself a 
failure. At the end of two years’ service as a policeman 
he had been given the choice of transfer to the Criminal 
Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. He had 
gladly accepted the opportunity, and had shown so much 
aptitude for plain-clothes work that by the end of another 
two years he had risen to the rank of detective. Caldew 
thought he was on the rapid road to further promotion, 
and had married on the the strength of that belief. But 
another ten years had passed since then, and he still oc- 
cupied a subordinate position, with not much hope of 
promotion unless luck came his way. And there seemed 
very little chance of that. Caldew’s professional exper- 
ience had imbued him with the belief that the junior of- 
ficers of Scotland Yard existed for no other purpose 
than to shoulder the blame for the mistakes of their 
official superiors, who divided amongst themselves the 
plums of promotion, rewards, and newspaper publicity. 
That, of course, was the recognized thing in all public 
departments. Caldew found no fault with the system. 
His great ambition was to obtain some opening which 
would bring him advancement and his share of the plums. 

He believed his opportunity had arrived that night. It 
had always been his dream to have the chance to unravel 
single-handed some great crime — a murder for choice — 
in which he alone should have all the glory and praise 
and newspaper paragraphs. He determined to make the 


72 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


most of the lucky chance which had fallen into his hands, 
before anybody else could arrive on the scene. He had 
confidence in his own abilities, and thought he had all 
the qualifications necessary to make a great detective. 
He was, at all events, sufficiently acute to realize that 
opportunity seldom knocks twice at any man’s door. 

The three men set out for the moat-house. At the 
butler’s request Sergeant Lumbe went ahead to summon 
the doctor, who lived on the other side of the village 
green, and while he was gone Caldew drew the details 
of the crime from his companion. Lumbe rejoined them 
at the footbridge which led across the meadows into the 
Heredith estate, and they proceeded on their way in 
silence. Sergeant Lumbe’s brain — such as it was — was 
in too much of a whirl to permit him to talk coherently ; 
Tufnell, habitually a taciturn individual, had been ren- 
dered more so than usual by the events of the night; and 
Caldew was plunged into such a reverie of pleasurable 
expectation, regarding the outcome of his investigations 
of the moat-house murder, that the stages of his promo- 
tion through the grades of detective, sub-superintendent, 
and superintendent, flashed through his mind as rapidly 
as telegraph poles flit past a traveller in a railway car- 
riage. The crime which had struck down one human 
being in the dawn of youth and beauty, turned another 
into a murderer, and plunged an old English family into 
horror and misery, afforded Detective Caldew’s optimis- 
tic temperament such extreme gratification that he could 
scarcely forbear from whistling aloud. But that is hu- 
man nature. 

They passed through the wood, and crossed the moat 
bridge. The mist was creeping out of the darkness on 
both sides of the moat-house, casting a film across the 
faint light which gleamed from one or two of the heavily 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


73 


shuttered windows. Caldew, pausing midway on the 
bridge to glance at the mist-spirals stealing up like a 
troop of ghosts, asked his brother-in-law if the moat was 
still kept full of water. He received an affirmative re- 
ply, and walked on again. 

A maidservant answered Tufneirs ring at the front 
door, and informed him in a whisper that Sir Philip and 
Miss Heredith were in the drawing-room. Thither they 
bent their steps, and found Musard awaiting them near 
the door. He nodded to Sergeant Lumbe, whom he 
knew, and glanced interrogatively at Caldew. Lumbe an- 
nounced the latter's identity. 

“You had better come in here first," said Musard, 
opening the door of the drawing-room and revealing the 
baronet and Miss Heredith sitting within. Brother and 
sister glanced at the group entering the room. 

“ This is Detective Caldew, of Scotland Yard," Mus- 
ard explained to them, indicating the young man. “ He 
is staying with Lumbe, who thought it advisable to bring 
him." 

“ Have you told them everything ? " Miss Heredith 
spoke to Tufnell. Her dry lips formed the words rather 
than uttered them, but the old retainer understood her, 
and bowed without speaking. “ What do you wish to do 
first, Detective Caldew ? " she added, turning to him, and 
speaking with more composure. She was quick to real- 
ize that he would take the lead in the police investigations. 
A glance at Sergeant Lumbe’s flustered face revealed only 
too clearly that the position in which he found himself 
was beyond his official capabilities. 

Caldew stepped briskly forward. He was in no way 
embarrassed by his unaccustomed surroundings or by 
the commanding appearance of the great lady who was 
addressing him. He was a man who believed in him- 


74 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


self, and such men are too much in earnest to be diffident. 

“ I should like to ask a few questions first, 
madam,” he said. “ So far, I have heard only your 
butlers version of what happened.” Without waiting 
for a reply he launched a number of questions, and made 
a note of the replies in a pocket-book. 

Musard, who assisted Miss Heredith to answer the 
questions, was rather impressed by the quick intelligence 
the detective displayed in eliciting all the known facts of 
the murder, but Sergeant Lumbe, who remained stand- 
ing near the door, was shocked to hear Caldew cross- 
questioning the great folk of the moat-house with such 
little ceremony. He thought his brother-in-law a very 
forward young fellow, and hoped that Miss Heredith 
would not hold him responsible for his free-and-easy 
manner. 

“ Now I should like to commence my investigations,” 
said Caldew, replacing his pocket-book. “ There has 
been too much time lost already. I will start with exam- 
ining the room where the body is, if you please.” 

“ Certainly.” Miss Heredith rose from her seat as 
she uttered the word. 

“ My dear Alethea ! ” — Musard’s tone was expostu- 
latory — “I will take the detective upstairs. There is no 
need for you to come.” 

“ I prefer to do so.” Miss Heredith’s tone admitted 
of no further argument. She was about to lead the way 
from the room when she paused and glanced at Tufnell. 
“ When will Dr. Holmes be here ? ” she asked. 

“ Almost immediately, ma’am.” 

“ You had better stay here and receive him, Philip.” 
Miss Heredith placed her hand affectionately on her 
brother’s shoulder. He had not spoken during the time 
the police were in the room, but had sat quietly on his 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


75 


chair, with bent head and clasped hands, looking very- 
old and frail. “ It will be as well for him to see Phil 
before going upstairs,” she added. 

Sir Philip looked up at the mention of his son’s name. 
“ Poor Phil,” he muttered dully. 

“ I think the doctor should examine Phil the moment 
he comes,” continued Miss Heredith, aside, to Musard. 
“ His look alarms me. I fear the shock has affected 
his brain. Tufnell, be sure and show Dr. Holmes to 
Mr. Philip’s room directly Sir Philip has received him.” 

“ You can rely upon me to do so, ma’am,” said Tufnell 
earnestly. 

“ Very well. We will now go upstairs.” 

She left the drawing-room and proceeded towards the 
broad oak staircase, with Musard close behind her. De- 
tective Caldew followed more slowly, noting his sur- 
roundings. When they reached the head of the stair- 
case Miss Heredith switched on the electric current, and 
the bedroom corridor sprang into light. Detective 
Caldew was surprised at its length. 

“ Where does this passage lead to? ” he asked abruptly. 

“To the south side of the moat-house,” replied Musard. 

“ Has it any outlet ? ” 

“ Yes ; a door at the end communicates with a narrow 
staircase, leading to another door at the bottom. The 
second door was a former back entrance — it opens some- 
where near the servants’ quarters, I think ? ” He 
glanced inquiringly at Miss Heredith. 

“ Those stairs are never used now,” she replied. “ The 
entrance door at the bottom of the staircase is kept 
locked.” 

“ There are such things as skeleton keys,” commented 
the detective. 

Musard opened the door of the death-chamber and 

/ 


76 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


switched on the light. Caldew walked at once to the bed- 
side. He drew away the covering which had been placed 
over the face of the young wife, and stood looking at her. 

Death had invested her with pathos, but not with 
dignity. On the pallor of the death mask the tinted lips, 
the spots of rouge, the pencilled eyebrows of the dead 
face, were as clearly revealed as print on a white page. 
The lips were parted; the small white teeth were show- 
ing beneath the upper lip. The little nose rose in the 
sharp outline of death ; between the half-closed eyelids 
the darkened blue eyes looked out vacantly. The thick, 
fair hair, spotted with blood, flowed in disordered waves 
over the white pillow ; the numerous rings on the dead 
hands blazed and glittered with hard brilliance in the 
electric light. 

It was these costly jewels on the murdered girl’s hands 
which prompted the question which sprang to the de- 
tective’s lips: 

“ Did the murderer take anything? ” he asked. “ Has 
anything been missed ? ” 

“ No,” said Miss Heredith. “ Nothing has been 
taken.” 

“ Mrs. Heredith had more jewellery than this, I sup- 
pose ? ” pursued the detective. “ Brooches and necklaces, 
and that kind of thing. Where were they kept ? ” 

“ Mrs. Heredith’s jewel-case is downstairs, in the safe 
in the library,” replied Miss Heredith. She did not feel 
called upon to add the additional information that she 
had taken it there herself, and locked it up, not half an 
hour before. 

Detective Caldew made a mental note of the fact that 
the motive for the crime was not robbery, unless, indeed, 
the murderer had become flurried, and fled. His eye, 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


77 


glancing round the room, was attracted by the window 
curtains, which were stirring faintly. He flung them 
back, and saw the open window. 

“ How long has this window been open ? ” he asked. 

Miss Heredith gave her reasons for believing that the 
window was closed when she left Violet to go downstairs 
to the dining-room. Caldew listened thoughtfully, 
and nodded his head in quick comprehension when she 
added the information that the bedroom window was 
nearly twenty feet from the ground. 

“ You think the murderer did not jump out of the 
window,” he said. “ The more important point is, did 
he get in that way? It is not a difficult matter to scale 
a wall to reach a window if there is any sort of a foot- 
hold. It is *a point I will look into afterwards.” 

He tried the window catch, and then walked about the 
room, examining it closely. His quick, eager eyes, look- 
ing about in every direction, were caught by something 
glittering on the carpet, close to the bed. He glanced 
at his companions. As a detective, he had long learnt 
the wisdom of caution in the presence of friends and re- 
latives. 

“ I should like to be left alone in the room in order to 
examine it more thoroughly,” he briefly announced. 

When Miss Heredith and Musard had left the room 
he locked the door behind them, and, kneeling down by 
the bedside, disentangled a small shining object almost 
concealed in the thick green texture of the carpet. It 
was a trinket like a bar brooch, with gold clasps. The 
bar was of transparent stone, clear as glass, with a 
faint sea-green tinge, and speckled in the interior with 
small black spots. Caldew had never seen a stone like 
it. The frail gold of the setting suggested that it was 


78 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


not of much intrinsic value, but it was a pretty little 
trinket, such as ladies sometimes wear as a mascot. 
Caldew reflected that if it were a mascot it was by no 
means certain that the owner was a woman. Many 
young officers took mascots to the front for luck. 

As he turned it over in his hand he observed some 
lettering on the underside. He examined it curiously, 
and saw that an inscription had been scratched into the 
stone in round, irregular handwriting — obviously an un- 
skilled, almost childish effort. Holding the brooch 
closer to the light, he was able to decipher the inscrip- 
tion. It consisted of two words — “ Semper Fidelis.” 

It seemed to Caldew that the inscription rather weak- 
ened the correctness of his first impression that the 
trinket had been worn as a feminine mascot. He 
doubted very much whether any modern woman would 
cherish a mid-Victorian sentiment like “ Always Faith- 
ful.’’ On the other hand, many men might. His ex- 
perience as a detective had led him to the belief that men 
were more prone to such sentiments than the other sex, 
though their conduct rarely accorded with their protesta- 
tions and temporary intentions. 

Struck by a sudden thought, he dropped the trinket 
back on the carpet. It was just visible in the thick 
pile. 

“ A good idea ! ” he murmured, as he rose to his feet. 
“ I’ll watch this room to-night.” 

As he stood there, speculating on the possibility of the 
owner of the trinket returning to the room to search for 
it, he was interrupted by a low tap at the door. He 
walked across and opened it. Tufnell stood outside, 
grave and composed. 

“Mr. Musard would like to see you in the library,” 
he said. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


79 


His tone was even and almost deferential, but the de- 
tective’s watchful eyes intercepted a fleeting glance cast 
by the butler over his shoulder in the direction of the 
still figure on the bed. 

“ Very well, I will see him,” said the detective. 

“ I will take you to him, if you will come with me.” 
The butler preceded him along the passage with noiseless 
step, and Caldew followed him, deep in thought. 

The butler escorted him to the library, and entered 
after him. Musard was in the room alone, standing by 
the fireplace, smoking a cigar. He looked up as Caldew 
entered. 

“ I have just learnt something which I think you 
ought to know,” he said. “ The information comes from 
Tufnell. He tells me that while he was going around 
the house this afternoon he found the outside door of 
the back staircase unlocked.” 

“ Do you mean the door at the bottom of the stair- 
case in the left wing?” asked Caldew. 

“ Precisely.” 

“ I understood from Miss Heredith that this door was 
always kept locked.” 

“ So it is, as a rule. It was only by chance that the 
butler discovered this evening that it had been unlocked. 
You had better explain to the detective, Tufnell, how 
you came to find it unfastened.” 

“ I was going round by the back of the house this 
evening,” said the butler, coming forward. “ As I passed 
the door I tried the handle. To my surprise it yielded. 

I opened the door, and found that the key was in the 
keyhole, on the other side. I locked the door, and took 
the key away.” 

“ What time was this ? ” inquired Caldew. 


8o 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“A little before six — perhaps a quarter of an hour.” 

“Is it your custom to try this door every night?” 

“ Oh, no, it is not necessary. The door is always kept 
locked, and the key hangs with a bunch of other unused 
keys in a small room near the housekeeper’s apartments, 
where a number of odds and ends are kept.” 

“When was the last time you tried the door?” 

The butler considered for a moment. 

“ I cannot rightly say,” he said at length. “ The door 
is never used, and I rarely think of it.” 

“ Then, for all you know to the contrary, the key may 
have been in the door for days, or weeks past.” 

“ Why, yes, it is possible, now that you come to men- 
tion it,” said the butler, with an air of surprise, as though 
he had not previously considered such a contingency. 

“ The key had been taken off the bunch ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Do the servants know where the key is kept ? ” 

“ Some of the maidservants do. The back staircase 
is occasionally opened for ventilation and dusting, and 
the maid who does this work gets the key from the house- 
keeper.” 

“ Who has charge of the room where the keys are 
kept ? ” 

“ Nobody in particular. It is really a sort of a lumber- 
room. The housekeeper has charge of the keys.” 

“ Thank you ; that is all I wish to know.” 

The butler left the room, and Caldew looked up, to 
encounter Musard’s eyes regarding him. 

“ Do you think this has anything to do with the mur- 
der?” Musard asked. 

Caldew hesitated for a moment. It was on the tip 
of his tongue to reply that he attached no irtiportance to 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


81 


the butler’s statement, but professional habits of caution 
checked his natural impulsiveness. 

“ I want to know more about the circumstances be- 
fore advancing an opinion,” he replied. '* Tufnell’s 
story was rather vague.” 

“ In what respect ? ” 

“In regard to time. The door may have been left 
unlocked for days.” 

” Who would unlock it ? ” replied Musard. “ The in- 
ference, in view of what has happened, seems rather that 
the door was unlocked to-day, and Tufnell stumbled 
upon the fact by a lucky chance — by Fate, if you like. 
At least it looks like that to me.” 

“And the murderer entered by the door?” 

" Yes.” 

“ I think that is assuming too much,” said Caldew. 
He had no intention of pointing out to his companion 
that such an assumption overlooked the fact that Tuf- 
nell’s discovery, and the locking of the door, had not 
prevented the crime and the subsequent escape of the 
murderer. 

He turned to leave the room, but Musard was in a 
talkative mood. He offered the detective a cigar, and 
kept him for a while, chatting discursively. Caldew was 
in no humour to listen. His mind was full of the prob- 
lems of this strange case, and he was anxious to return 
upstairs. He took the first opportunity of terminating 
the conversation and leaving the room. 

It was his intention to conceal himself in one of the 
wardrobes of the bedroom in the hope that the owner of 
the trinket he had found would return in search of it. 
As he reached the landing he was surprised to see that 
the door of the murdered woman’s bedroom was wide 


82 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


open, although he remembered distinctly that he had 
closed it when he left the room to accompany the butler 
downstairs. With a quickly beating heart he hurried 
across the room to the spot where he had left the trinket. 
But it was gone. 


CHAPTER VII 


It was the morning after the murder, and five men 
were seated in the moat-house library. One of them at- 
tracted instant attention by reason of his overpowering 
personality. He was a giant in stature and build, with 
a massive head, a large red face from which a pair 
of little bloodshot eyes stared out truculently, and a bull 
neck which was several shades deeper in colour than 
his face. He was Superintendent Merrington, a noted 
executive officer of New Scotland Yard, whose handling 
of the most important spy case tried in London during 
the war had brought forth from a gracious sovereign 
the inevitable Order of the British Empire. Merrington 
was known as a detective in every capital in Europe, and 
because of his wide knowledge of European criminals 
had more than once acted as the bodyguard of Royalty 
on continental tours, and had received from Royal hands 
the diamond pin which now adorned the spotted silk tie 
encircling his fat purple neck. 

The famous detective’s outlook on life was cynical 
and coarse. The cynicism was the natural outcome of 
his profession ; the coarseness was his heritage by birth, 
as his sensual mouth, blubber lips, thick nose, and 
bull-neck attested. It was a strange freak of Fate which 
had made him the guardian of the morals of society and 
the upholder of law and order in a modern civilized 
community. By temperament and disposition he be- 
longed to the full-blooded type of humanity which found 
its best exemplars in the early Muscovite Czars, and, if 
Fate had so willed it, would have revelled in similar pur- 
83 


8 4 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


suits of vice, oppression, and torture. A§, Fate had 
ironically made a police official of him, he had to con- 
tent himself with letting off the superfluous steam of his 
tremendous temperament by oppressing the criminal 
classes, and he had performed that duty so thoroughly 
that before he became the travelling companion of kings 
his name had been a terror to the underworld of Lon- 
don, who feared and detested his ferocity, his unscrupu- 
lous methods of dealing with them, and his wide know- 
ledge of their class. 

He was a recognized hero of the British public, which 
on one occasion had presented him with a testimonial 
for his capture of a desperado who had been terrorizing 
the East End of London. But Merrington disdained 
such tokens of popular approval. He regarded the 
public, which he was paid to protect, as a pack of fools. 
For him, there were only two classes of humanity — fools 
and rogues. The respectable portion of the population 
constituted the former, and criminals the latter. He 
had the lowest possible opinion of humanity as a whole, 
and his favourite expression, in professional conversation, 
was : “ human nature being what it is ... ” He was 
still a mighty force in Scotland Yard, although he had 
passed his usefulness and reached the ornamental stage of 
his career, rarely condescending to investigate a case 
personally. 

His present visit to the moat-house was one of those 
rare occasions, and was due to the action of Captain 
Stanhill, the Chief Constable of Sussex, who was seated 
near him. Captain Stanhill was a short stout man, with 
a round, fresh-coloured face, and short sturdy legs and 
arms. He wore a tweed coat of the kind known to 
tailors as 44 a sporting lounge,” and his little legs were 
encased in knickerbockers and leather gaiters, which were 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


85 


spattered with mud, as though he had ridden some dis- 
tance that morning. He was a very different type from 
Superintendent Merrington — a gentleman by birth and 
education, a churchman, and a county magnate. He 
never did anything so dangerous as to think, but accepted 
the traditions and rules of his race and class as his safe 
guide through life. Like most Englishmen of his station 
of life, he was endowed with just sufficient intelligence 
to permit him to slide along his little groove of life with 
some measure of satisfaction to himself and pleasure to 
his neighbours. He was a sound judge of cattle and 
horses, but of human nature he knew nothing whatever, 
and his first act, on being informed of the murder at 
the moat-house, was to ring up Scotland Yard and re- 
quest it to send down one of its most trusted officials 
to investigate the circumstances. In reply to this call 
for assistance, Superintendent Merrington, not unmind- 
ful of the county standing and influence of the Here- 
diths, had decided to investigate the case himself, and 
had brought with him two satellites — a finger-print ex- 
pert who was at that moment paring his own finger- 
nails with a pocket-knife as he stared vacantly out of the 
library window, and an official photographer, who was 
upstairs taking photographs in the death chamber. 

Seated near the finger-print expert was a police of- 
ficial of middle-age, Inspector Weyling, of the Sussex 
County Police. He was a saturnine sort of man, with 
a hooked nose, a skin like parchment, and a perfectly 
bald sugar-loaf head, surmounted at the top by a wen 
as large as a duck-egg. His deferential attitude and 
obsequious tone whenever Superintendent Merrington 
chose to address a remark to him indicated that he had 
a proper official respect for the rank and standing of 
that gentleman. Inspector Weyling was merely a police 


86 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


official. He had no personal characteristics whatever, 
unless a hobby for breeding Belgian rabbits, and a pro- 
found belief that Mr. Lloyd George was the greatest 
statesman the world had ever seen, could be said to con- 
stitute a temperament. 

The fifth man was Detective Caldew, who had just 
completed a narrative of the events of the previous night 
for the benefit of his colleagues, but more especially for 
Superintendent Merrington, in whose hands lay the power 
of directing the investigations of the crime. It was by 
no wish of Detective Caldew that Superintendent Mer- 
rington had been brought into the case. Caldew thought 
when the county inspector arrived and found a Scotland 
Yard man at work he would be only too glad to allow 
him to go on with the case, and he anticipated no difficulty 
in obtaining the consent of his official superiors at Scot- 
land Yard to continuing the investigations he had com- 
menced. But Inspector Weyling, when notified of the 
crime by Sergeant Lumbe, had telephoned to the Chief 
Constable for instructions. The latter, distrustful of the 
ability of the county police to bring such an atrocious 
murderer to Justice, had begged the help of Scotland 
Yard, with the result that Superintendent Merrington 
and his assistants appeared at the moat-house in the 
early morning before the astonished eyes of Caldew, who 
was taking a walk in the moat-house garden after a 
night of fruitless investigations. 

In the arrival of Merrington, Caldew saw all his fine 
hopes of promotion dashed to the ground. He was 
by no means confident that Merrington would per- 
mit him to take any further share in the investigations, 
but he was quite certain that if he did, and the murderer 
was captured through their joint efforts, very little of 
the credit would fall to his share when such a famous 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 87 

detective as Merrington was connected with the case. 
Merrington would see to that. 

Caldew, in his narration of the facts of the murder, 
laid emphasis on the mysterious nature of the crime, 
in the hope that Merrington might deem it wiser to re- 
turn to London and leave him in charge of the case, 
rather than risk a failure which would greatly damage 
his own reputation. Merrington listened to him 
gloomily. He fully realized the difficult task ahead of 
the police, and his temper was not improved in con- 
sequence. 

“Apparently the murderer has got clean away with- 
out leaving a trace behind him?” he said. 

“ Yes.” 

“No sign of any weapon?” 

“ No.” 

“Anything taken?” 

“ No. Miss Heredith says nothing was taken from 
the room, and nothing is missing from the house.” 

“ The motive was not robbery then,” remarked Cap- 
tain Stanhill. 

“ It may have been,” responded Merrington. “ Caldew 
says the first intimation of the crime was the murdered 
woman screaming. The scream was followed in a few 
seconds by the revolver shot. If she screamed when 
she saw the murderer enter her room, he may well have 
feared interruption and capture, and bolted without steal- 
ing anything.” 

“ Why did he murder her, then, in that case ? ” asked 
Captain Stanhill. 

“To prevent subsequent identification. Many burg- 
lars proceed to murder for that reason. I know plenty 
of old hands who would commit half a dozen murders 
rather than face the prospect of five years’ imprison- 


88 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


ment. I do not say that burglary was the motive in 
this case, but we must not lose sight of the possibility.” 

“ It seems a strange case,” murmured Inspector 
Weyling absently. He was thinking, as he spoke, of 
his rabbits, and wondering whether his wife would re- 
member to give the lop-eared doe with the litter a little 
milk in the course of the morning. 

“ It’s a very sad case,” said Captain Stanhill. “ Poor 
young thing ! ” The Chief Constable was a human being 
before he was a police official, and his face showed plainly 
that he was stricken with horror by the story of the crime. 

“ It’s a damned remarkable case,” exclaimed Merring- 
ton, in his booming voice. “ I do not remember its 
parallel. An English lady is murdered in her home, 
with a crowd of people sitting at dinner in the room 
underneath, and the murderer gets clean away, without 
leaving a trace. No weapon, no finger-prints or foot- 
prints, and no clue of any kind.” 

Caldew had been hoping to get an opportunity of 
telling Merrington privately about the missing trinket, 
but he realized that he was not doing his duty by de- 
laying the explanation. 

“ There was something which might have helped us 
as a clue,” he said. “ Last night, while I was examining 
Mrs. Heredith’s bedroom, I saw a small trinket lying 
on the floor near the bedside.” 

“ What sort of a trinket ? ” asked Merrington. 

“ A small bar brooch.” 

4 ‘ Where is it?” 

“ I do not know,” replied Caldew awkwardly. “ I 
left it where I saw it, hidden in the carpet, thinking it 
possible that the person who had lost it might return in 
search of it, but while I was downstairs it disappeared.” 

“ It is rather strange,” said Merrington thoughtfully. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


89 


“ I am not inclined to think there is anything in it to 
help us,” he added, after a moment’s consideration. 
“ Still, I will look into it later. Why did you leave the 
trinket in the room, Caldew ? ” 

“ I thought it possible that if the owner had anything 
to do with the crime he — or she — might return for 
it,” said Caldew. 44 So I left it where I found it, and 
watched the room from the end of the passage.” 

“ A murderer doesn’t go about wearing a cheap 
trinket, and, if he did, he wouldn’t risk his neck coming 
back to look for it. The brooch was more likely dropped 
by one of the maidservants, who picked it up again.” 

“ Would a girl go into a room where there was a dead 
body?” 

44 A country wench would. English countrywomen 
have pretty strong nerves. You ought to know that. 
But why did you leave the room if you expected the 
owner of the trinket to return in search of it?” 

44 1 was called downstairs to see Mr. Musard. An 
unused outside door which is generally kept locked was 
discovered unlocked by the butler before the murder 
was committed. As the door opens on a staircase lead- 
ing to the left wing, Mr. Musard thought the butler’s 
discovery had some bearing on the crime.” 

44 He thought the murderer may have entered the 
house that way? Such a theory would suggest that one 
of the servants is implicated.” 

44 Yes; but I do not agree with Mr. Musard.” 

44 What is your own opinion ? ” 

44 1 think the key must have been left in the door by 
one of the servants — perhaps some days ago. The fact 
that the butler locked the door when he found it un- 
fastened did not prevent the murder being committed, 
or the murderer escaping afterwards.” 


90 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ The murderer may have entered by the door before 
the butler discovered that it had been unlocked, and 
then concealed himself inside the house awaiting an op- 
portunity to commit the crime.” 

u In that case, he would have tried to escape the same 
way, but it is quite certain that he did not do so. Mr. 
Musard says that the staircase was the first place to be 
searched when the guests rushed upstairs. If the mur- 
derer had gone that way he would have found the door 
at the bottom locked, and the key removed, and he must 
have been caught before he could get back upstairs.” 

“ There’s something in that,” said Merrington. “ But 
how do you account for the door being unlocked in the 
first instance?” 

“ The servants know where the key is kept. One of 
the maids may have taken it to steal out of the house 
that way to keep an appointment with a sweetheart, and 
forgotten all about it when she returned. The back 
staircase and entrance are never used by the members 
of the household, and the key, which was inside the door, 
may have been there for days without being noticed. 
Tufnell admits that it was only by chance he tried the 
door yesterday. He had not tried it for weeks before.” 

“ I’ll have a look at this door later. And now, we had 
better get to work. We have got to catch this murderer 
pretty quickly, or the press and the public will be up in 
arms. He’s had too long a start already. You must 
make up your mind for considerable public indignation 
about that, Caldew.” 

“ I do not see how I can be held responsible for the 
murderer getting away,” said Caldew, in an aggrieved 
tone. “ He had his start before I arrived. I did every- 
thing that I could. I searched the house inside and out, 
and Sergeant Lumbe has been scouring the country- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


9i 


side since daybreak looking for suspicious characters.” 

“ I am not blaming you, Caldew,” responded Merring- 
ton, but his voice suggested the reverse of his words. 
“ I am merely pointing out to you the way the British 
public will look at it. They will say, ‘ Here is a young 
wife murdered in the bosom of her home and family, 
and the murderer gets right away. What do we pay the 
detective force for? To let murderers escape?’ Mark 
my words, if we don’t lay our hands on this chap quickly, 
we’ll have the whole of the London press howling at our 
heels like a pack of wolves. Half a dozen special re- 
porters travelled down in the train with me and pestered 
me with questions all the way. They are coming along 
here later for a statement for the evening editions. But 
never mind the journalists — let us get to work without 
further loss of time. Have you made a list of all the 
guests who have been stopping in the house ? ” 

“ Not yet. Here is a sketch plan of the moat-house 
interior and the grounds which you may find useful.” 

“ Thanks. You had better prepare a list of the guests 
before they leave. They are sure to get away as fast as 
possible, and we may want to interview some of them 
later on. Now we had better have a look at the body.” 

They went upstairs to the bedroom. There they found 
a young man, with a freckled face and a snub nose, pack- 
ing up a photographic apparatus. He was the photo- 
grapher, and he had been taking photographs of the 
dead body. 

“ Finished ? ” inquired Merrington. “ That’s right. 
Then you and Freeling had better return to London by 
the next train — you’ll be wanted in that Putney case.” 

The photographer and the finger-print expert left the 
room together, and Merrington walked across to the bed. 
He drew away the sheet which covered the dead girl, and 


92 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


bent over the body, examining it closely, but without 
touching it. 

“ The corpse has not been moved, I suppose?” he re- 
marked to Caldew, who was standing beside him. 

“ Not since I arrived. But she may not have been 
shot in that position. She lived some minutes after- 
wards, and may have moved slightly — not much, I 
should say, for there are no marks of bloodstains on 
any other part of the bed.” 

Merrington nodded. He was looking at the bullet 
wound, which was plainly visible through a burnt orifice 
in the rest-gown which the dead girl was wearing. The 
wound was a circular punctured hole in the left breast, 
less than the size of a sixpenny piece. 

“ The wound has been washed,” he observed. “ Was 
that done by the police surgeon?” 

“ The police surgeon has not been here. The corpse 
was examined by the village medical man, Dr. Holmes.” 

“ I should like to see him. Where is he to be found? ” 

“ He will be here in the course of the morning. He 
is attending young Heredith, who is suffering from the 
shock. The doctor fears brain fever.” 

“ When he comes I want to see him. It is idle speculat- 
ing about the cause of death in the absence of a doctor. 
Death in this case appears to have been due to haemor- 
rhage. Apparently the murderer aimed at the heart and 
missed it, and the shot went through the lungs. The 
shot was fired at very close range too — look how the 
wrapper is burnt ! Any sign of the bullet, Caldew ? ” 

** I found none.” 

** Well, we shall have to wait for the doctor to clear 
up these points.” 

His trained eyes swept round the bedroom, taking 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


93 

stock of every article in it. He next carefully examined 
the door, and the lock on it. 

44 The door was open when the others came upstairs, 
you said, Caldew ? ” 

“Yes — about half open.” 

44 That accounts for the scream and the shot being 
heard so plainly downstairs. It also suggests that the 
murderer fled very hurriedly, leaving the door open 
behind him.” 

44 It seems to me more likely that he escaped by the 
window, even if he did not enter that way. Miss Here- 
dith, who was the last inmate of the household to see 
Mrs. Heredith alive, thinks that the window was closed 
when she was in the room before dinner.” 

Merrington walked over to the window and examined 
it, testing the lock and looking at the sill. 

“ Does Miss Heredith say that the window was locked, 
or merely closed, when she was in the room ? ” he asked. 

“ She cannot say definitely. She thinks it was closed 
because the air was heavy, and she knew that Mrs. Here- 
dith disliked having her bedroom window open.” 

Merrington shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. 

" A woman’s fancies are not much to build a theory 
upon,” he said. “ Have you any other reason for think- 
ing that the murderer may have escaped by this win- 
dow ? ” 

“ Yes. After the shot was fired the guests rushed 
upstairs immediately, and the murderer would have run 
into them if he had attempted to escape downstairs.” 

“ Is there no other means of escape from the wing 
except by the staircase ? ” 

“ There is the back staircase I told you of, at the end 
of the corridor. That staircase is never used. The 


94 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


door is kept locked, and the key hangs in a room down- 
stairs. It was the door at the bottom of this staircase 
which was found unlocked by the butler yesterday eve- 
ning.” 

“ I’ll have a look at it, and then we’ll go downstairs. 
I want to see this bedroom window from outside.” 

They left the bedroom and proceeded to the end of the 
corridor, where Caldew pointed out the door at the top 
of the staircase. Merrington opened it, and went down 
the stairs. He reappeared after the lapse of a few 
minutes with dusty hands and cobwebs on his clothes. 

“ The murderer didn’t get in that way,” he said. " On 
the face of it, it seems a plausible theory to suggest that 
he entered by the locked door and hid himself somewhere 
in this wing, and escaped after committing the murder 
by jumping through the bedroom window. But it is 
impossible to get over your point that if he had entered 
by the door he would have tried to escape by the same 
means, not knowing that the door had been locked in 
the meantime. To do that he must have traversed the 
corridor twice and gone down and up these back stairs 
while the guests were coming up the other stairs. He 
couldn’t have done it in the time. He would have been 
caught — cut off before he could get back. Look at this 
steep flight of stairs and the length of the corridor! 
That disposes of the incident of the door. Whoever un- 
locked it was not the murderer.” 

Merrington retraced his steps along the corridor. As 
he walked, his eyes roved restlessly over the tapestry 
hangings and velvet curtains, and took in the dark nooks 
and corners which abound in old English country-houses. 

“ Plenty of places here where a man might hide,” he 
muttered, in a dissatisfied voice. 

At the head of the front staircase he paused, and 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


95 


looked over the balusters, as though calculating the dis- 
tance to the hall beneath. Then he descended the stairs. 

It still wanted half an hour to breakfast time. There 
was no sign of anybody stirring downstairs except a 
fresh-faced maidservant, who was dusting the furniture 
in the great hall. She glanced nervously at the groups 
of police officials, and then resumed her dusting. Mer- 
rington strode across to her. 

“What is your name, my dear?” he asked, in his 
great voice. 

“ Milly Saker, sir.” 

“ Very well, Milly. I’ll come and have a talk with you 
presently — just our two selves.” 

The girl, far from looking delighted at this prospect, 
backed away with a frightened face. Merrington strode 
on through the open front door, and turned towards the 
left wing. 

It was a crisp autumn morning. The early sunshine 
fell on the hectic flush of decay in the foliage of the 
woods, but a thin wisp of vapour still lingered across the 
moat-house garden and the quiet fields beyond. Mer- 
rington kept on until he reached the large windows of 
the dining-room, which opened on to the terraced garden. 

“ That’s Mrs. Heredith’s window,” he said, pointing 
up to it. “ Her bedroom is directly over the dining- 
room. If the murderer escaped by the window he must 
have dropped on to this gravel path.” 

“ It is a pretty stiff drop,” said Captain Stanhill, meas- 
uring the distance with his eye. 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” replied Merrington. “ He’d let 
himself down eight feet with extended arms, and that 
would leave a drop of only ten feet or thereabouts — 
not much for an athletic man. But if he dropped he 
must have left footprints.” 


96 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


** There are none. I have looked,” said Caldew. 

The information did not deter Merrington from ex- 
amining the path anew. He got down on his hands and 
knees to scrutinize the gravel and the grass plot more 
thoroughly. 

“ Nothing doing here either,” he said as he scrambled 
to his feet. “ There are neither footprints nor marks 
such as one would expect to find if a man had dropped 
out of the window. What are you looking at, Wey- 
ling ? ” 

In reply Inspector Weyling made his first and only 
contribution towards the elucidation of the crime. 

“ Could not the murderer have climbed up to the bed- 
room by that creeper? ” he asked, pointing to a thin 
trail of Virginia creeper which stretched up the wall al- 
most as high as the window. 

Merrington tested the frail creeper with his great 
hand. His sharp tug detached a mass of the plant from 
the brickwork. 

“ Not likely,” he replied. “ It might bear the weight 
of a boy or a slender girl, but not of a man. What do 
you think, Caldew ? ” 

Caldew nodded without speaking. Weyling’s remark 
had started a train of thought in his mind, but he had 
no intention of revealing it to a man who plainly did 
not intend to confer with him on equal terms, or dis- 
close his own theory of the murder — if he had formed 
one. 

“ Let us get inside again/’ said Merrington, in his 
masterful way. 

He turned back towards the house, and the others 
followed. 


CHAPTER VIII 


As they reached the library again a small silver clock 
on the mantelpiece gave a single chime. Merrington 
looked at it, and then glanced at his watch. 

“ Half-past eight ! ” he said. “ That clock is five 
minutes slow — by me. The people who have been stay- 
ing here will go off after breakfast. Visitors always 
leave a house of trouble as soon as possible — like rats 
deserting a sinking ship. The thing is to question as 
many as we can get hold of before they go. As some 
of them knew Mrs. Heredith before her marriage, we 
may elicit something about her or her antecedents which 
will throw some light on the motive for the crime. ,, 

“ I do not think Sir Philip will care to have his guests 
questioned,” remarked Captain Stanhill doubtfully. 
“ They must be all well-connected and very respectable 
people, or they would not have been invited here.” 

“ There have been very respectable and highly con- 
nected murderers before to-day, Captain Stanhill, as no 
doubt you are aware,” rejoined Merrington causti- 
cally. 

“ The guests were all downstairs in the dining-room 
at the time the murder was committed,” said Caldew. 
“ Miss Heredith told me so herself.” 

“ I am aware of that fact also,” retorted Merrington 
sharply. “ Nevertheless, they must be seen. We can- 
not afford to throw away a chance.” 

“ It is a delicate and awkward business,” murmured 
the Chief Constable. 

“ It will be a delicate and awkward business for us if 
97 


98 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


we don’t lay our hands on this criminal,” responded 
Merrington. “ Sir Philip Heredith, with his influence 
and connections, will be able to make it pretty hot for 
Scotland Yard and the County Police if the murderer 
of his son’s wife is allowed to escape. You’d better take 
the job in hand at once, Caldew. Weyling can go with 
you and help. See as many of the guests as you can — 
especially the ladies — and get what you can out of them. 
But I’d be glad if you’d first ask Miss Heredith to 
grant me an interview before breakfast. Don’t send a 
servant, but see her yourself.” 

Caldew left the room to undertake the investigations 
allotted to him, and Weyling followed him with a startled 
expression of face. He felt overweighted by the magni- 
tude of the task which had been thrust upon him, and 
doubted his ability to discharge it properly. 

“ Miss Heredith will be able to give us more informa- 
tion than Sir Philip,” remarked Merrington in a friendly 
tone to Captain Stanhill, as the door closed behind the 
subordinate officials. “ A woman is generally more ob- 
servant than a man — particularly if anything under- 
hand has been going on.” 

Captain Stanhill cast a puzzled glance at his companion. 
As a simple-minded English gentleman he was quite un- 
able to penetrate the obscurity of expression which 
masked the meaning of the last remark. Merrington 
caught the look, but had formed too poor an opinion of 
his companion’s understanding to explain himself fur- 
ther. Besides, he liked mystifying people. 

“ I’m going to put the servants through their facings 
straight away,” he continued. “If there is anything to 
be learnt we are more likely to find it out from them than 
the guests. Trust the backstairs for knowing what’s 
going on upstairs! Servants want skilful handling, 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


99 


though. You’ve got to know when to bully and when 
to coax. Half measures are no good with them.” 

Captain Stanhill did not reply. He wandered round 
the spacious library, glancing at the rows of books in 
their oaken shelves. Superintendent Merrington, while 
awaiting the arrival of Miss Heredith, drew forth the 
plan of the moat-house -which Caldew had sketched, and 
studied it closely. 

The moat-house had only two stories, but it was a 
rambling old place and covered a considerable area of 
ground, facing three sides of the county. The principal 
portion, consisting of the old house which had been 
burnt down and rebuilt, faced the north. The two wings 
had been added later. 

The front door opened into a spacious entrance hall 
which in former times had been the dining-room. At the 
end of the hall was the grand staircase, adorned by 
statues, armour, and the Heredith arms carved in panels. 
The principal rooms, with the exception of the dining- 
room, were all on the ground floor of the main building, 
but corridors led off the entrance hall to the newer wings 
at each side, extending on the right side to the billiard 
room, conservatory, greenhouses, and orangery, and on 
the left side to the dining-room, Miss Heredith’s private 
sitting-room, and Sir Philip’s study. 

Merrington carefully studied the arrangements of this 
wing, as depicted on Caldew’s sketch plan. The upper 
portion was reached by a staircase which opened off the 
corridor almost opposite the dining-room door, and ran, 
with one turning, to a landing which was only a few 
feet away from the door of the bedroom in which Mrs. 
Heredith was murdered. Next to this room was a dress- 
ing-room, and a spare bedroom. The remainder of the 
wing consisted of two bathrooms, a linen room, and Miss 


IOO 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


Heredith’s bedroom, which was at the south end of the 
wing. The rooms all faced the west side of the 
house, and were lit by windows opening on the 
terraced gardens. They were entered by a cor- 
ridor which ran the whole length of the wing, terminat- 
ing in the door which opened on the unused back stair- 
case. 

Before Merrington had finished his scrutiny of the 
plan, the door opened, and Miss Heredith entered the 
library. She looked pale and worn, and there were dark 
rings under her eyes which suggested a sleepless night. 
But her face was composed, though grave. 

Captain Stanhill advanced and shook hands with her, 
uttering a few words of well-bred sympathy as he did so, 
and then introduced Superintendent Merrington. 

“ Superintendent Merrington has been kind enough to 
come down from Scotland Yard at my request to give 
us the benefit of his skill in investigating this terrible 
crime,” he said simply. 

“ I desired an interview with you in order to ask a few 
questions,” said Merrington, coming to the point at once. 

Miss Heredith bowed. 

“ Were all the blinds down in the dining-room last 
night during dinner?” asked Merrington. 

Captain Stanhill looked quickly at his colleague. He 
failed to see the purpose of the question. 

“ I think so,” replied Miss Heredith, after a moment’s 
reflection. “ I cannot say for certain, as I was out of the 
room during the latter portion of the dinner, but I can 
easily ascertain.” She touched a bell, which was an- 
swered by a maidservant. “Tell Mr. Tufnell I wish to 
speak to him,” she said. 

The girl went away, and Tufnell appeared a moment 
afterwards. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


IOI 


“ Were the blinds all drawn in the dining-room dur- 
ing dinner last night, Tufnell? ” 

“ Yes, ma’am. I pulled them -down myself before 
sounding the gong.” 

“ Thank you, Tufnell.” 

“ I understand that you were not present at the dinner 
table when the shot was fired ? ” said Merrington when 
the butler had left the room. 

“ No, I was not.” 

“ May I ask why you left the table? ” 

The question was put suavely enough, but a half-ut- 
tered protest from Captain Stanhill indicated that he, at 
least, realized the sting contained within it. But Miss 
Heredith, looking at Merrington with her clear grey eyes, 
replied calmly: 

“ I was called out of the room to speak to our chauffeur. 
He had been ordered to have an extra vehicle in read- 
iness to convey our guests to an evening entertainment, 
and he wished to consult me about it.” 

“ Why did you not return to the dining-room ? ” 

** Because dinner was nearly finished when I left the 
room.” 

“ Where were you when the shot was fired ? ” 

“ I was on the stairs, on the way to my room when I 
heard the scream. I was hastening back to the dining- 
room as quickly as possible, but before I reached it the 
shot rang out.” 

“ Surely these questions are unnecessary, Merrington,” 
exclaimed Captain Stanhill. “ Anyone would think — I 
mean that there is not the slightest idea in our minds 
that Miss Heredith — at least, I meant to say — ” Captain 
Stanhill floundered badly as he realized that his remarks 
were capable of a terrible interpretation which he did not 
intend, and broke off abruptly. 


102 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ I am very glad that Superintendent Merrington has 
asked these questions/’ said Miss Heredith coldly. 

Merrington bowed a grim acknowledgment. He had 
still many questions he wanted to ask Miss Heredith, and 
he proceeded to put them in his own masterful way, very 
much as though he were examining a witness in the police 
court, Captain Stanhill thought, but in reality with a 
courtesy and consideration quite unusual for him. It 
was his best manner; his worst, Captain Stanhill was to 
see later. As a matter of fact, it was impossible for 
Merrington to be gentle with anybody. He had spent 
so many years of his life probing into strange stories and 
sinister mysteries that he had insensibly come to regard 
the world as a larger criminal court, made up of tainted 
and adverse witnesses, whom it was his privilege to cross- 
question. 

He questioned Miss Heredith searchingly about the 
young bride. According to an eminent expert in. juris- 
prudence, the tendency to believe the testimony of others 
is an inherent instinct implanted in the human breast by 
the Almighty. If that be so, it is to be feared that the 
seed had failed to germinate in Merrington’s bosom, for 
his natural tendency was to look upon his fellow crea- 
tures as liars, particularly when they were of good social 
standing, with that hatred of notoriety which is char- 
acteristic of their class. Merrington had this fact in 
his mind as he interrogated Miss Heredith closely about 
the circumstances of her nephew’s marriage. He hoped 
to extract from her something which her English pride 
might lead her to conceal, something which might throw 
a light on the motive for the murder. 

Miss Heredith answered him with a frankness which 
even Merrington grudgingly realized left nothing to be 
desired. She was, apparently, only too anxious to help 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


103 


the police investigations to the best of her ability. But 
what she had to tell amounted to very little. Her first 
knowledge of her nephew’s intention to marry was con- 
tained in a letter written home some four months be- 
fore, in which he announced his engagement to a young 
lady engaged in war work in a London Government of- 
fice. A month later came the news that he was mar- 
ried, and was bringing his young bride to the moat- 
house. The young couple arrived a week after the re- 
ceipt of the second letter. They were welcomed home, 
and settled down to country life in the old place. Phil 
left his post in the War Office, and busied himself in 
looking after the estate. He was very fond of his young 
wife, but it was obvious from the first that Violet found 
the quiet country existence rather dull after her London 
life. She knew nobody in Sussex except Mrs. Weyne, 
the author’s wife, who had been an acquaintance of hers 
in London years before, and she did not seem to care 
much for the county people who visited the moat-house. 
She received letters from girl friends in London, and 
sometimes read extracts from them at the breakfast table, 
but her life, on the whole, was a secluded one. It was 
in order to brighten it that Phil suggested a house party. 
The guests consisted principally of Violet’s and Phil’s 
London friends and acquaintances. 

“ Do you know the names of these girl friends who 
used to write to her ? ” asked Merrington. 

Miss Heredith replied that she did not. 

“I suppose her husband would know them?” 

“ It is quite impossible to question my nephew,” said 
Miss Heredith decisively. “ He is dreadfully ill.” 

Merrington nodded in a dissatisfied sort of way. He 
was aware of Phil’s illness, and *his suspicious mind won- 
dered whether it had been assumed for the occasion in 


104 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


order to keep back something which the police ought to 
know. His thick lip curled savagely at the idea. If 
these people tried to hide anything from him in order 
to save a scandal, so much the worse for them. But that 
was something he would go into later. 

, The next questions he put to Miss Heredith were de- 
signed to ascertain what she thought of the murder, 
whether she had any suspicions of her own, and whether 
there was any reason for suspecting Miss Heredith her- 
self. At that stage of the inquiry it was Merrington’s 
business to suspect everybody. He could not afford to 
allow the slightest chance to slip. His object was to get 
at the truth ; to weigh each particle of supposition or evi- 
dence without regard to the feelings or social position of 
the witness. 

The case so far puzzled him, and Miss HereditlTs an- 
swers to his questions revealed little about the murder 
that he had not previously known. The only additional 
facts he gleaned related to the murdered girl’s brief ex- 
istence at the moat-house; of her earlier history and her 
London life Miss Heredith knew nothing whatever. 
Merrington made some notes of the replies in an imposing 
pocket-book, but he was plainly dissatisfied as he turned 
to another phase of the investigation. 

“ Were all your guests in the dining-room at the time 
the scream and the shot were heard ? ” he asked. 

“ They were all there when I left the room. The but- 
ler can tell you if any left afterwards.” 

“ I will question Tufnell on that point later. No, on 
second thoughts, it will be better to settle it now. I at- 
tach importance to it.” 

Tufnell was recalled to the room, and, in reply to Su- 
printendent Merrington’s question, stated that none of 
the guests left the dining-room before the shot was fired. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


105 


Tufnf/1 added they were all interested in listening to a 
story that Mr. Musard was telling. Having imparted 
this information the butler returned to the breakfast 
room, overweighted with the responsibility of superin- 
tending the morning meal in his mistress's absence. 

“Is this Musard the jewel expert of that name?" 
asked Merrington. 

“ Our guest is Mr. Vincent Musard, the explorer," re- 
plied Miss Heredith coldly. 

“ The same man." Merrington made another minute 
note in his pocket-book, and continued, “ May I take it, 
then, that all your guests who were staying here were 
assembled in the dining-room at the time the murder 
was committed ? " 

“ Yes ; except one who left during the afternoon." 

“Who was that?" 

“ Captain Nepcote, a friend of my nephew’s. He re- 
ceived a telegram recalling him to the front, and returned 
to London by the afternoon train." 

Merrington made a note of this in his pocket-book with 
an air of finality, and asked Miss Heredith to see that 
the servants were sent to the library one by one, to be 
questioned. Miss Heredith said she would arrange it 
with the housekeeper, and was then politely escorted to 
the door by Captain Stanhill. 

The next few hours were educative for Captain Stan- 
hill. Although he was Chief Constable of Sussex, he 
took no part in the proceedings, but sat at the table like 
a man in a dream, living in a world of Superintendent 
Merrington’s creation — a world of sinister imaginings 
and vile motives, through which stealthy suspicion 
prowled craftily with padded feet, seeking a victim 
among the procession of weeping maids, stolid under- 
gardeners, stable hands, and anxious upper servants who 


io6 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


presented themselves in the library to be questioned* But 
it seemed to Captain Stanhill that though the women 
were flustered and the men nervous, they knew nothing 
whatever about the atrocious murder which had been 
committed a few hours before in the room above their 
heads. Merrington also seemed to be aware that he was 
getting no nearer the truth with his traps, his questions, 
and his bullying, and he grew so angry and savage as 
the day wore on that he reminded Captain Stanhill of a 
bull he had once seen trying to rend a way through a 
mesh. As the morning advanced, Merrington’s face took 
on a deeper tint of purple, his fierce little eyes grew 
more bloodshot, and between the intervals of examining 
the servants he mopped his perspiring head with a large 
handkerchief. 

The significance of one fact he did not realize until 
afterwards. The last of the inmates of the moat-house 
to come to the library was the housekeeper, Mrs. Rath, 
who presented herself at his request in order to acquaint 
him with the details of the domestic management of the 
household. Mrs. Rath entered the room with a nervous 
air. Her white face contrasted oddly with her black 
dress, and her hands shook slightly, in spite of her effort 
to appear composed. Merrington stared at her care- 
worn face and hollow grey eyes with the perplexed sen- 
sation of a man who is confronted with a face familiar 
to him, but is unable to recall its identity. 

“Where have I seen you before?” he blurted out. 

The housekeeper raised frightened eyes, ringed with 
black, to his truculent face, but dropped them again with- 
out speaking. Merrington did not repeat his question. 
He did not imagine the housekeeper knew anything about 
the murder, but it was a mistake to put a witness on 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


107 


her guard. It was in quite a different tone that he 
thanked Mrs. Rath for sending the servants to the library, 
and asked her to describe the household arrangements of 
the previous night. Mrs. Rath, who had been palpably 
nervous after his first question, became reassured and 
more at her ease, and answered him intelligently. 

“ And where were you at the time of the murder, Mrs. 
Rath ? ” pursued Merrington, when he had drawn forth 
these details. 

“ I was in my sitting-room.” 

“ Did you hear the scream and the shot ? ” 

“ I heard the scream, but not the shot.” 

“ How was that? ” 

“ My sitting-room is a long way from Mrs. HereditlTs 
room. Perhaps that is the reason.” 

Merrington looked at the position of the housekeep- 
ers room on the plan of the moat-house which Caldew 
had drawn. As she said, it was a considerable distance 
to her room, which was in the old portion of the house, 
near the rear, and on the ground floor. 

“ Were you alone in your room? ” he asked. 

“ No. My daughter was sitting with me.” 

To a quick ear it may have seemed that the answer was 
a trifle long in coming. 

Merrington shook his head irritably. Really, it 
seemed impossible to reach the end of the people who 
were in this infernal moat-house at the time of the mur- 
der. 

“ Does your daughter live with you here ? ” he asked. 

“ Oh, no. She came to see me yesterday afternoon, 
and stayed all night because she missed her train back 
after — after the tragedy.” 

“ Is she here now? ” 


io 8 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ No. She went away by an early train. She is em- 
ployed as a milliner at Stading, the market town, which 
is ten miles away.” 

“She lives there, I suppose?” 

“ Yes. She lives in.” 

“ Who is her employer ? ” 

“ Mr. Closeby, the draper. Daniel Closeby and Son 
is the name of the firm.” 

Merrington made another note in his pocket-book. 
It sounded plausible enough, but the girl must be added 
to the lengthening list of people in the case who would 
have to be seen. 

“ I think that is all I need detain you for, Mrs. Rath,” 
he said. 

The housekeeper lingered to inquire when the gentle- 
men would like their lunch. Merrington, who had 
breakfasted early and passed an arduous morning, re- 
plied bluntly that it could not be too soon to please him. 

“ I'll have it served in the small breakfast-room in a 
quarter of an hour,” said Mrs. Rath, hurrying away. 

Her whole bearing, as she departed, indicated such 
an air of irrepressible relief at having passed through a 
trying ordeal that all Merrington’s former doubts of her 
revived. 

“ I’d give something to remember where I’ve seen that 
infernal woman before,” he ejaculated, slapping his thigh 
emphatically. 

“ What infernal woman ? ” asked Captain Stanhill, 
who had come to the conclusion that he did not like 
Superintendent Merrington or his style of conversation. 

“ Why, that woman who has just left the room' — that 
housekeeper. I’ve seen her before somewhere, in very 
different circumstances, but I cannot recall where. I 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


109 


recollect her face distinctly — particularly her eyes. I 
flatter myself I never forget a pair of eyes. * Confound 
it, where the devil have I seen her?” 

Captain Stanhill turned away indifferently, and the 
conversation was terminated by the appearance of De- 
tective Caldew, who appeared in the doorway as Mrs. 
Rath left the room. 

“ Dr. Holmes is waiting in the drawing-room if you 
wish to see him,” he announced. 

“ Bring him here,” commanded Merrington curtly. 
He had a great notion of his self-importance, and had 
no intention of dancing attendance on a mere country 
practitioner. 

Caldew went away, and shortly reappeared with a 
little man whom he introduced as Dr. Holmes. The 
doctor was a meagre shrimp of humanity, with a peevish 
expression on his withered little face, as though he were 
bored with his own nonentity. He was dressed in faded 
clothes and carried a small black bag in one hand and a 
worn hat in the other. If he had any idea of airing a 
professional protest at being compelled to wait upon the 
police, the thought vanished as his eye took in the stu- 
pendous stature of Superintendent Merrington, who 
towered above him like a mastiff standing over a toy 
terrier. 

“ Sit down, doctor,” he curtly commanded. “ I want 
to ask you a few questions about the death of Mrs. 
Heredith. You examined the body, I understand?” 

Dr. Holmes bowed, put on a pair of gold-rimmed 
spectacles in order to see Superintendent Merrington 
better, and waited to be questioned. 

" I understand you were summoned to the moat-house 
last night, doctor, after Mrs. Heredith was murdered, 


no 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


and examined the body. What was the cause of death? ,r 

“ The cause of death was a bullet wound,” pronounced 
the doctor oracularly. 

“ I am aware of that much,” answered Merrington 
irritably. “ But a bullet wound is not necessarily fatal. 
Mrs. Heredith lived some time after her death, so it is 
certain that the bullet which killed her did not penetrate 
the heart. What is the nature of the injuries it in- 
flicted?” 

“ Death in Mrs. Heredith’s case was the result of a 
bullet passing through the left lung. It passed between 
the second and third ribs in entering the body, traversed 
the lung, causing a great flow of blood, which filled the 
air passages.” 

“ Then the cause of death was haemorrhage? ” 

“ Yes. There was very severe internal haemorrhage. 
The face and the left-hand side of the neck were covered 
with blood. There had also been bleeding from the 
mouth and nose. Mr. Musard, who accompanied me to 
the room, told me he had washed it away while Mrs. 
Heredith was dying, in an endeavour to staunch the 
flow.” 

“ She was quite dead when you saw her ? ” 

“ Oh, yes. Judging by the warmth of the body, and 
by the fact that blood had ceased to flow, I should say 
that death had taken place about forty minutes before.” 

“ What time did you reach the moat-house ? ” 

44 It would be about twenty minutes past eight. Ser- 
geant Lumbe called at my house at ten minutes past the 
hour — I made a note of the time — and I went im- 
mediately. It is about ten minutes’ walk to the moat- 
house from the village.” 

44 Was the main blood vessel of the lung broken?” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


hi 


asked Captain Stanhill, who had been following the doc- 
tor’s remarks with close attention. 

“ The aorta ? It is difficult to say from an external 
examination. Mr. Musard tells me that Mrs. Heredith 
died about five minutes after he reached the room. The 
aorta is a very large vessel, and if it were burst bleed- 
ing to death would be very rapid.” 

“ Could the wound have been self-inflicted ? ” asked 
Merrington. 

Dr. Holmes pursed his lips. 

“ I can form no definite opinion on that point,” he 
said. “ By the direction of the bullet, I should say not.” 

“Have you found the bullet?” 

“ No, it is in the body. As apparently it took a course 
towards the right after entering the body, and there is 
no corresponding wound in the back, I should say that 
it is lodged somewhere in the vertical column. Of 
course, I cannot be sure.” 

“ The Government pathologist will clear up these 
points when he makes the post-mortem examination,” 
said Merrington. “ I do not think we have any more 
questions to ask you, doctor.” 

“How is your patient, the young husband?” asked 
Captain Stanhill, as Dr. Holmes rose. 

“ The symptoms point to brain fever. The family, on 
my advice, have sent to London for Sir Ralph Horton, 
the eminent brain doctor.” 

“ I do not wonder his mind has given way under the 
shock,” remarked Captain Stanhill. “ To lose his wife 
in such terrible circumstances after three months’ mar- 
riage must have been a cruel blow.” 

“ It was the worse in his case because he has always 
been nervous and highly strung from childhood — partly. 


1 12 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


I think, as the result of his infirmity. He has a de- 
formed foot. His present illness seems to be a com- 
plete overthrow of the nervous system. I have been with 
him the greater part of the night. He has been highly 
delirious, but he is a little quieter now.” 

Merrington pricked up his ears at this last remark. 
After his fruitless investigations of the morning he was 
inclined to think that the clue to the murder lay in the 
past — it might be in some former folly or secret intrigue 
of the young wife’s single days. The question was, in 
that case, whether the husband was likely to have any 
knowledge of his wife’s secret. If he had, he might, 
in his delirium, babble something which would provide 
a clue to trace the murderer. It was a poor chance, but 
the poorest chance was worth trying in such a baffling 
case. 

“ I should like to have a look at your patient,” he said 
to Dr. Holmes. 

“ It would be impossible to question him in his present 
state,” replied the doctor stiffly. 

“ I do not wish to question him. I merely wish to 
look at him.” 

“ In that case you may see him. He is quite uncon- 
scious, and recognizes nobody. I will take you to his 
room, if you wish.” 

The little doctor bustled along the corridor, and turned 
into a passage traversing the right wing of the moat- 
house. About half way down it he paused before a door, 
which he opened softly, and motioned to the other two 
to enter. 

It was a single bedroom, panelled in oak, which was 
dark with age, with one small window ; but it had the ad- 
vantage of being as far away as possible from the upstairs 
bedroom in the left wing where Phil’s wife lay mur- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


1 13 

dered. A small fire burnt in the grate, a china bowl of 
autumn flowers bloomed on a table near the bedside, and 
a. capable looking nurse was preparing a draught by the 
window. She glanced at the three men as they entered, 
but went on with her occupation. 

The sick man lay on his back, breathing heavily. His 
black hair framed a face which was ghastly in its white- 
ness, and his upturned eyes, barely visible beneath the 
half-closed lids, seemed fixed and motionless. 

“ Any change, nurse ? ” the doctor asked. 

“ No change, sir.” 

But even as she spoke Phil’s face changed in a manner 
which was wonderful in its suddenness. His features 
became contorted, as though a sword had been thrust 
through his vitals, and he struggled upright in his bed, 
with one shaking hand outstretched. His eyes, glaring 
with delirium, roved restlessly over the faces of the men 
at the foot of the bed. 

“ She’s dead, I tell you ! Violet’s dead. . . . Have 
they found him? Ah, who’s that?” 

Once again he uttered his young wife’s name, and 
fell back on the pillow, motionless as before, but with 
one arm athwart his face, as though to cover his eyes. 

“ I shall be glad if you will leave the room,” said the 
little doctor gravely. “ Your presence excites him.” He 
hurried round to the bedside and bent over his patient. 


CHAPTER IX 


“ Have you formed any theory of the murder yet ? ” 

It was the evening of the same day, and Superintendent 
Merrington and Captain Stanhill were once more in the 
moat-house library. It was Captain Stanhill who asked 
the question, as he stood warming his little legs in front 
of a crackling fire of oak logs which had just been 
lighted in the gloomy depths of the big fireplace. Al- 
though it was early in autumn, the evening air was chill. 

Superintendent Merrington was walking up and down 
the room with rapid strides, occasionally glancing with 
some impatience at the clock which ticked with cheerful 
indifference on the mantelpiece. He was about to re- 
turn to London, but was waiting for the return of De- 
tective Caldew and Sergeant Lumbe. Caldew had cycled 
to Chidelham to see the Weynes, and Lumbe had been 
sent to investigate a telephoned report of a suspicious 
stranger seen at a hamlet called Tibblestone, some miles 
away. 

Merrington’s face wore a gloomy and dissatisfied ex- 
pression. He had spent the afternoon in a whirlwind of 
energy in which he had done many things. He had ex- 
plored the moat-house from top to bottom, squeezing his 
vast bulk into every obscure corner of the rambling old 
place. He had rowed round the moat in a small boat, 
scrutinizing the outside wall for footmarks. He had 
mustered the male servants, and superintended an or- 
ganized beat of the grounds, the woods, and the neigh- 
bouring heights. He had interviewed the village station- 
master to ascertain if any stranger had arrived at Here- 
114 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


US 

dith the previous day, and had made similar inquiries 
by telephone at the adjoining stations. He had inspected 
the horses and vehicles at the village inn to see if they 
showed marks of recent usage, and he had peremptorily 
interrogated everybody he came across to find out 
whether any one unknown in the district had been seen 
skulking about the neighbourhood. 

Merrington lacked the subtle and penetrative brain of 
a really great detective, but he possessed energy, initiative, 
and observation. These qualities had stood him in good 
stead before, but in this case they had brought nothing 
to light. The mystery and meaning of the terrible mur- 
der of the previous night were no nearer solution than 
when he had arrived to take up the case, ten hours before. 

The most baffling aspect of the crime to him was the 
apparent lack of motive and the absence of any clue. 
In most murders there are generally some presumptive 
clues to guide those called upon to investigate the crime 
— such things as finger-prints or footprints, a previous 
threat or admission, an overheard conversation, a chance 
word, or a compromising letter. Such clues may not 
prove much in themselves, but they serve as finger- 
posts. Even the time, which in some cases of murder 
offers a valuable help to solution, in this case tended to 
shield the murderer. It seemed as though the murderer 
had chosen an unusual time and unusual conditions to 
shield his identity more thoroughly and make discovery 
impossible. 

The case was full of sinister possibilities and per- 
plexities. It bore the stamp of deep premeditation and 
calculated skill. As the crime was apparently motive- 
less, it was certain that the motive was deep and care- 
fully hidden. The only definite conclusion that Mer- 
rington had reached was that the murderer would have 


n6 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


to be sought further afield, probably in London, where 
the dead girl had lived all her life. There seemed not 
the slightest reason to suspect anybody in the neighbour- 
hood, as she was a stranger to the district, and knew 
nobody in it except Mrs. Weyne, who lived some miles 
away. It was unfortunate that her husband, who was 
the only person able to give any information about her 
earlier life, was too ill to be questioned. 

On hearing Captain Stanhill’s question, Merrington 
paused abruptly in his impatient pacing of the carpet, 
and glanced at him covertly from his deep-set little eyes. 
If he had consulted his own feelings he would have told 
the Chief Constable that it was not the time to air 
theories about the crime. But in his present position it 
behoved him to walk warily and not make an enemy 
of his colleague. If there was to be an outburst of 
public indignation because the murderer in this case had 
not been immediately ^discovered and brought to justice, 
it would be just as well if the county police shared the 
burden of responsibility. Merrington realized that he 
could best make Captain Stanhill feel his responsibility 
by taking him fully into his confidence. He was aware 
that he had practically ignored the Chief Constable in 
the course of the day’s investigations, and it was desirable 
to remove any feeling that treatment may have caused. 
Superintendent Merrington had the greatest contempt 
for the county police, but there were times when it 
was judicious to dissemble that feeling. The present 
moment was one of them. 

Captain Stanhill, on his part, cherished no animosity 
against his companion for his cavalier treatment of him. 
He realized his own inexperience in crime detection, and 
had been quite willing that Superintendent Merrington 
should take the lead in the investigations, which he had 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


117 

assisted to the best of his ability. He thought Merring- 
ton rather an unpleasant type, but he was overawed by 
his great reputation as a detective, and impressed by his 
energy and massive self-confidence. The Chief Con- 
stable had not asserted his own official position, because 
he was aware that he was unable to give competent help 
in such a baffling case. He was, above all things, anx- 
ious that the murderer of Violet Heredith should be 
captured and brought to justice as speedily as possible, 
and he had no thought of his personal dignity so long 
as that end was achieved. 

The abstract ideal of human justice is supposed to be 
based on the threefold aims of punishment, prevention, 
and reformation, but the heart of the average man, when 
confronted by grevious wrong, is swayed by no higher 
impulse than immediate retribution on the wrongdoer. 
Captain Stanhill was an average man, and his feelings, 
harrowed by the spectacle of the bleeding corpse of the 
young wife, and the pitiful condition to which her mur- 
der had reduced her young husband, clamoured for re- 
tribution, swift, complete, and implacable, on the being 
who had committed this horrible crime. And he hoped 
that the famous detective would be able to assure him 
that his desire was likely to have a speedy attainment. 
That was why he asked Merrington whether he had 
formed any theory about the crime. 

“ It would be too much to say that I have formed a 
theory/’ replied Merrington, in response to Captain 
Stanhill’s question. “ It is necessary to have clues for 
the formation of a theory, and in this case we are faced 
with a complete absence of clues.” 

“ Do you not think that the trinket found by Detective 
Caldew in Mrs. Heredith’s bedroom has some bearing on 
the murder ? ” said Captain Stanhill. 


n8 THE HAND IN THE DARK 

“ I attach no importance to it. There were a number 
of persons in the bedroom after the murder was com- 
mitted, and any of them might have dropped the orna- 
ment. Or it may have been lost there days before by a 
servant, and escaped notice.” 

“ But it was picked up again during Caldew’s absence 
from the room. Do you not regard that as suspicious? 
Detective Caldew, when he was relating the incident to 
us this morning, seemed to think that the trinket be- 
longed to the murderer, who took the risk of returning 
to the room to recover it for fear it might form a clue 
leading to discovery. ,, 

“ Caldew reads too much into his discovery/’ replied 
Merrington, with an indulgent smile. “ Like all young 
detectives, he is inclined to attach undue importance to 
small points. As I told him, I cannot imagine a mur- 
derer taking such a desperate risk as to return to the 
spot where he had killed his victim, in order to search 
for a trinket he had dropped. Caldew may have con- 
cealed the brooch so effectually in the thick folds of the 
velvet carpet that he could not find it again when he 
looked for it on his return to the room. That ex- 
planation strikes me as probable as his own theory of a 
mysterious midnight intruder returning to search for it 
while he was out of the room. The trinket may have 
some connection with the crime, or it may not, but as I 
have not seen it I prefer to leave it out of my calculation 
altogether. This case is going to be difficult enough to 
solve without chasing chimeras. But to return to your 
question. Although I have not actually formed a theory, 
my preliminary investigations of the circumstances have 
led me to arrive at certain conclusions and to exclude 
possibilities I was at first inclined to adopt. I will go 
over the case in detail, and then you will see for your- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


1 19 

self the conclusions I have formed, and understand how 
I have arrived at them. 

“ In the first place, the greatest problem of this mur- 
der is the apparent lack of motive. There seems to 
be no reason why this young lady should have been killed. 
She had only recently been married, and, apparently, 
married happily, to a wealthy young man of good family, 
who was very much in love with her. It is obvious that 
money difficulties have nothing to do with the crime. 
Her husband is the only son of a wealthy father, and 
he is able to give his wife everything that a woman needs 
for her happiness and comfort. She is cherished, petted, 
and loved, and has a beautiful home. Who, therefore, 
had an object in putting an end to this young woman’s 
life in her own home, in circumstances and conditions 
attended with the utmost possibility of discovery and 
capture? The perpetrator of the deed must have acted 
from some very strong motive or impulse to venture into 
a country-house full of people, at a time when every- 
body was indoors, in order to kill his victim. 

“ In a seemingly purposeless murder like this, a cer- 
tain amount of suspicion gathers round the other mem- 
bers of the household. Human nature being what it is, 
one should never take anything for granted, but should 
always be on the watch for hidden motives. But in 
this case the members of the household, with the excep- 
tion of Miss Heredith, were downstairs in the dining- 
room at the time the murder was committed. Miss Here- 
dith left the room a few minutes before the shot was 
heard. You will recall that she volunteered that state- 
ment to us this morning. It occurred to me at the time 
that that may have been bluff to put us off the scent. 
Clever criminals often do that kind of thing. My sus- 
picions against her were strengthened by the additional 


120 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


fact that Miss Heredith did not like her nephew’s wife. 
She masked the fact beneath a well-bred semblance of 
grief and horror, but it was plain as a pikestaff to me. 
But, after thinking over all the circumstances, I came to 
the conclusion that she had nothing whatever to do with 
it.” 

“ Such a possibility is inconceivable,” exclaimed Cap- 
tain Stanhill. “ A lady like Miss Heredith would never 
commit murder.” 

“ It was not for that reason that I excluded her from 
suspicion,” replied Merrington drily. “ The points 
against her were really very damaging. She was out of 
the dining-room when the scream was heard, and when 
the others rushed out of the dining-room on hearing the 
shot, the first thing they saw was Miss Heredith de- 
scending the staircase of the wing in which her nephew’s 
wife had been murdered. Fortunately for Miss Here- 
dith, she was almost at the bottom of the staircase when 
she was seen. The guests streamed out of the dining- 
room directly the shot was heard, therefore it is impos- 
sible that Miss Heredith could have shot Violet Here- 
dith and then reached the bottom of the stairs so quickly. 
She is able to establish an alibi of time, by, perhaps, 
half a minute. 

“ As all the members of the house party were in the 
dining-room at the time, it is clear that they had nothing 
to do with the actual commission of the crime. The next 
thing is the servants, and they also can be excluded from 
suspicion. When we examined them this morning they 
were all able to prove, more or less conclusively, that 
they were engaged in their various duties at the time the 
murder was committed. The point is that not one of 
them was upstairs in the left wing of the house when 
Mrs. Heredith was shot. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


121 


“ My original impression that the murder was not com- 
mitted by a native of the district has been deepened by 
our afternoon’s investigations. Where, then, are we to 
look for the murderer? To answer that question, in 
part, let us first consider hozv the murder was committed, 
and try and reconstruct the circumstances in which the 
murderer must have entered and left the house. 

“ Caldew thinks that the murderer entered the house 
by scaling the bedroom window, and made his exit by 
the same means. He bases that view on Miss Here- 
dith’s belief that the window was closed when she was in 
the bedroom before dinner. After the murder was com- 
mitted the window was found open. But Miss Here- 
dith’s statement about the closed window does not amount 
to very much. She does not actually know whether the 
window was open or shut, because the window curtains 
were completely drawn at the time she was in the room. 
Those curtains are so thick and heavy that they would 
keep out the air whether the window was open or shut, 
and account for the stuffy atmosphere in a room which 
had been occupied all day. 

“ I do not regard the open window as a clue one way 
or the other. The one thing we must not lose sight of 
is that nobody can say definitely when it was opened. 
It may have been opened by Mrs. Heredith herself be- 
fore Miss Heredith came into the room, or the murderer 
may have flung it open and escaped from the room that 
way after committing the murder. Personally, I do not 
think that he did, but I am not prepared altogether to 
exclude the possibility of his having done so. But I am 
convinced that he did not enter the bedroom by scaling 
the outside wall and getting in through the window. In 
the first place, there are no marks of any kind on the 
window sill or the window catch. There is not very 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


122 

much one way or another in the absence of marks on the 
sill or even on the catch, supposing the window was 
locked. The murderer might have opened the catch from 
outside without leaving a mark — I have known the trick 
to be done — and he might have got into the room with- 
out leaving any marks on the sill, particularly if he wore 
rubber boots. But, what is far more important, there 
are no marks on the wall outside, or any disturbance 
or displacement of the Virginia creeper which covers a 
portion of the wall, to suggest that the murderer climbed 
up to the room that way. I think it is certain that if he 
had done so he would have left his marks on the one or 
the other. The wall is of a soft old brickwork which 
would scratch and show marks plainly, and the Virginia 
creeper would break away. In any case, as I said this 
morning, it would barely sustain the weight of a boy, 
or a very slight girl. Finally, there are no marks of 
footsteps approaching the wall in the garden outside. 

“ The question of entry is naturally of great import- 
ance, and that was why I questioned the butler this morn- 
ing whether the blinds were drawn in the dining-room 
last night. At that time, before I had had an opportunity 
of making my subsequent investigations, I deemed it pos- 
sible that the murderer might have entered from outside 
by the window. In that case he would have had to pass 
the dining-room windows to reach the bedroom window, 
and might have been seen by one of the guests in the 
dining-room. It would be dark at the time, but last night 
was a very clear one, and his form might have been dis- 
cerned flitting past the dining-room windows. But the 
absence of footprints in the gravel, and more particularly, 
in the soft yielding earth beneath the bedroom window, 
is conclusive proof to me that he did not get into the 
room that way. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


123 


“Did he escape by the window? That question is 
more difficult to answer. It is quite possible that it 
might have been done without injury, but it is a desper- 
ate feat to leap from an upstairs window in the dark. 
The murderer was in desperate straits, and for that rea- 
son we must not rule out the possibility that he did so. 
But if the leap was made through the window, my argu- 
ment about the absence of footprints in the soft garden 
soil underneath the window comes in with additional 
force. A person leaping from such a height, even in 
stocking feet or rubber boots, would be certain to leave 
the impress of the drop, in footmarks or heelmarks, in 
the soil where he landed. 

“ Caldew’s principal reason for believing that the mur- 
derer escaped by the window was based on the point 
that there was no other avenue of escape possible. We 
can only speculate as to what happened in the bedroom 
immediately before the murder was committed, but Cal- 
dew’s theory is that Mrs. Heredith saw the murderer 
approaching her, and screamed for help. That scream 
hurried the murderer’s movements. The scream was 
sure to arouse the household, and it left the murderer 
with the smallest possible margin of time in which to 
shoot Mrs. Heredith and make escape by the window. 
An attempt to escape down the front staircase meant 
running into the arms of the inmates of the dining-room 
rushing upstairs. The only other exit from that wing 
of the house was the disused back staircase, and that 
was found locked when it was searched after the murder. 
Therefore, according to Caldew, the murderer escaped 
by the window because there was no other way out. 

“ That theory is plausible enough on the surface, but 
only on the surface. For the same reason that estab- 
lishes Miss Heredith’s innocence, the murderer could 


124 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


not have escaped by running down the staircase, because 
there was not sufficient time to get past the people who 
had been alarmed by the scream. But if the murderer 
was a man, it is just possible that he might have darted 
out of the bedroom and dropped over the balusters, be- 
fore the dining-room door was opened, getting clear away 
without being seen by anybody — not even by Miss Here- 
dith. An examination of the staircase of the left wing 
has convinced me that this feat was possible. The stair- 
case has a very sharp turn in the middle, which has the 
effect of hiding the top of the staircase from the bot- 
tom, and the bottom from the top. The leap is not so 
dangerous as the one from the window, because it is not 
so high. It is probably six feet less, allowing for the 
flooring beneath and the higher window opening above. 
The spot by the foot of the staircase where the mur- 
derer might have dropped is well screened, even from 
the view of anybody near the bottom of the stair- 
case, by some tall tree shrubs in tubs, and some 
armour. 

“ But there is another and likelier way by which the 
murderer might have escaped. I saw the possibility of 
it as soon as I examined the upstairs portion of the wing 
in which the murder had been committed. There are 
several places where the murderer could have hidden 
until chance afforded the opportunity of escape. He 
would avoid seeking shelter in any of the adjoining bed- 
rooms, because he would realize that they would be 
searched immediately the murder was discovered, but 
there are excellent temporary places of concealment be- 
hind the tapestry hangings, or in the thick folds of the 
heavy velvet curtains at the entrance to the corridor, 
or in the small press or wardrobe which is built right 
over the head of the stairs. Suppose that the murderer, 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


125 

after firing the shot, dashed out into the corridor with 
the idea of escaping down the stairs. He hears the guests 
coming upstairs, and realizes that he is too late. He 
instinctively looks round for some place to hide, sees 
the curtains, and slips behind them. From their folds 
he watches the guests troop along the corridor to the 
murdered woman's bedroom. He could touch them as 
they passed, but they cannot see him. Then, while they 
are all congregated round the doorway of Mrs. Here- 
dith’s bedroom, he emerges on the other side of the cur- 
tains, slips down the staircase, and gets out of the house 
without meeting anybody.” 

“ But all the guests did not go upstairs,” observed 
Captain Stanhill, who was following his companion’s re- 
marks with close attention. “ Some stayed in the din- 
ing-room. Tufnell, the butler, made that quite clear 
when you were examining him this morning.” 

“Yes — a few hysterical females cowering and whim- 
pering with fear as far away from the door as possible,” 
retorted Merrington contemptuously. “ The butler made 
that clear also.” 

“ But the servants would also have heard the scream 
and the shot,” pursued Captain Stanhill earnestly. “ Is 
it not likely that some of them would have been clustered 
near the foot of the staircase, wondering what had hap- 
pened ? ” 

“ No,” replied Merrington. “ Servants are even more 
cowardly than they are curious. They wpuld be too 
frightened to congregate at the foot of the staircase, for 
fear the murderer might come leaping downstairs and 
discharge another shot in their midst. It is possible, 
however, that the murderer remained hidden upstairs for 
some time longer — perhaps until the butler left the house 
to go to the village for the police, and Musard took all 


126 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


the male guests downstairs to make another search of 
the house. He would then have an exceedingly favour- 
able opportunity of slipping away unobserved. It is true 
that the upstairs portion of the wing was searched be- 
fore that time arrived, but the search was conducted by 
amateurs who knew nothing about such a task, and 
would probably overlook such hiding-places as I have 
indicated. 

It appeared to Captain Stanhill that Superintendent 
Merrington, instead of always adopting his theory of 
fitting the crime to the circumstances, was sometimes in 
danger of reversing the process. 

“ From what you say it seems to me that it is very 
difficult to tell how the murderer escaped,” he remarked. 

“ It is even more difficult to say how the murderer, 
after entering the moat-house, found his way to Mrs. 
Heredith’s bedroom in order to murder her. The house 
is a big rambling place, consisting of a main building and 
two wings. It would be impossible for you or me or any 
other stranger to find our way about it without previous 
knowledge of the place, unless we had a plan. How, 
then, did the murderer accomplish it? How did he 
know that Mrs. Heredith slept in the left wing? How 
did he know that he would find her alone in that wing 
while everybody else was downstairs at the dinner- 
table ?” 

Again, it seemed to Captain Stanhill that Merring- 
ton’s detective methods had a tendency to multiply diffi- 
culties rather than clear them up. 

“ Perhaps he was provided with a plan of the house,” 
he suggested. 

“ That answers only one of my points. In my con- 
sideration of this aspect of the case, two possible solu- 
tions occurred to me. It is impossible for any of the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


127 


guests to have committed the crime, because they were 
all downstairs at the time, but it is just possible one of 
them may have instigated it.” 

“ It is incredible to me that a guest staying in a gen- 
tleman’s house could plot such a crime,” said Captain 
Stanhill. 

“ Nothing is incredible in crime,” replied Merrington. 
“ I’ve no illusions about human nature. It is capable 
of much worse things than that. Strange things can 
happen in a big country-house like this, filled with a 
large party of young people of both sexes — flirtations, 
intrigues, and worse still.” 

“ But not murder, as a general rule,” commented 
Captain Stanhill, with a trace of sarcasm in his mild 
tones. 

“ You cannot lay down general rules about murder. 
An unbalanced human being, under the influence of 
hatred, jealousy, or revenge, is no more amenable to the 
rules of society than a tiger. But I do not think that 
this crime was instigated by one of the guests, because 
in that case 4t would probably have been arranged to be 
committed later in the evening, when the members of the 
house-party were at the house of the Weynes, and the 
moat-house was occupied only by the servants. Still, I 
do not intend to lose sight of the hypothesis. Another 
possibility is that one of the servants was in league with 
the murderer. A third possibility is that Mrs. Heredith 
may have brought in the murderer herself.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ She may have had a lover, and the lover may have 
murdered her.” 

“ Oh, impossible ! ” Captain Stanhill repelled the idea 
with an instinctive gesture of disgust. “ It is too mon- 
strous to suppose that a happily married young wife 


128 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


would be carrying on an intrigue three months after 
her marriage.” 

“ More monstrous things happen every day — human 
nature being what it is,” retorted Merrington coolly. 
“ You must remember that we know practically nothing 
about her. The people who knew her in London left 
the house before they could be questioned; Miss Here- 
dith and her brother have no knowledge of her past; 
and her husband is too ill to tell us anything. Her mar- 
riage was apparently a hasty love match — a love match 
so far as young Heredith was concerned. So far, we 
have only two slender facts to guide us in our estimate 
of her, which are contained in the two letters in which 
young Heredith announced his marriage to his people. 
According to those statements, she was an orphan who 
was earning her living as a war clerk in the Government 
department in which young Heredith held his appoint- 
ment. That does not carry us very far. During her 
brief life at the moat-house she seems to have been 
reticent about her earlier life. Miss Heredith is not 
the type of woman to have questioned her, and, appar- 
ently, she vouchsafed no information. An examination 
of her boxes and her writing-table has brought to light 
nothing in the way of writing or correspondence to help 
us. Such a girl — a bachelor girl in London in war- 
time — may have had passages in her past life of which 
her husband knew nothing — passages which may have 
an important bearing on her murder. Not until we have 
a thorough knowledge of her antecedents and her past 
life can we hope to pierce the hidden motives which have 
led to this murder. It is there, in my opinion, that we 
must seek for the clue to this strange murder, and it is 
to that effort I shall devote my energies as soon as I 
return to London. Until those facts are brought to light 
we are merely groping in the dark.” 


CHAPTER X 


In accordance with Merrington’s instructions, Caldew 
devoted a considerable portion of the morning seeking in- 
formation among the moat-house guests. But few of 
them showed any inclination to talk about the murder. 
Many of the women were too upset to be seen, and the 
men had plainly no desire to be mixed up in such a ter- 
rible affair by giving interviews to detectives. Every- 
body was anxious to get away as speedily as possible, 
and Caldew was compelled to pursue his inquiries 
amongst groups of hurrying people, flustered servants, 
and village conveyances laden with luggage. Most of 
the departing guests replied to his questions as briefly as 
possible, and gave their London addresses with obvious 
reluctance; the few who were willing to aid the cause 
of justice could throw very little light on the London 
life of the murdered girl. Even those who had been 
acquainted with her before her marriage seemed to know 
very little about her. 

Caldew finished his inquiries by midday. By that time 
most of the guests had departed from the moat-house 
and were on their way to London. Superintendent Mer- 
rington and Captain Stanhill were in the library ex- 
amining the servants. Sergeant Lumbe had gone by 
train to Tibblestone to sift the story of the suspicious 
stranger who had descended on that remote village dur- 
ing the previous night. 

It wanted an hour to lunch-time, and Caldew decided 
to spend the time by making a few investigations on his 

129 


130 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


own account before cycling over to Chidelham in the 
afternoon to see the Weynes. 

Caldew had not been impressed with Merrington’s 
handling of the case. Subordinates rarely are impressed 
with the qualities of those placed over them in authority. 
They generally imagine they could do better if they had 
the same opportunities. Caldew was no exception to 
that rule. It seemed to him that Merrington lacked 
finesse, and was out of touch with modern methods of 
criminal investigation. He had been spoilt by too much 
success, by too much newspaper flattery, by too many 
jaunts with Royalty. No man could act as sheep-dog 
for Royalty and retain skill as a detective. That kind 
of professional work was fatal for the intelligence. Mer- 
rington had a great reputation behind him, and his know- 
ledge of European criminals was probably unequalled, but 
his methods of investigating the moat-house murder sug- 
gested that he was no longer one of the world’s great- 
est detectives, if, indeed, he had ever deserved recognition 
in their ranks. Caldew recalled that his fame rested 
chiefly on his wide experience rather than on the more 
subtle deductive methods of modern criminology. It was 
said in Scotland Yard that when Merrington was at the 
height of his reputation, twenty years before, his know- 
ledge of London criminals and their methods was so ex- 
tensive that he could in most cases identify the criminal 
by merely looking at his handiwork. 

As a modern criminologist, Caldew believed that the 
less a detective intruded his own personality into his in- 
vestigations the better for his chances of success. He 
did not think that the loud officialism of Merrington was 
likely to solve such a deep, subtle crime as the murder 
of Violet Heredith, and, consequently, he had the chance 
for which he had waited so long. It now remained for 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


131 

him to prove that he could do better than Merrington. 
He had sufficient confidence in his own abilities to wel- 
come the opportunity, but at the same time he believed 
that he was confronted with a crime which would tax 
all his resources as a detective to unravel. 

Like Merrington, he had been struck by the strange- 
ness of the murder. All the circumstances were unusual, 
and quite outside his previous experience of big crimes. 
He had also come to the conclusion that the ease with 
which the murderer had found his way into the moat- 
house, and afterwards escaped, pointed to an intimate 
knowledge of the place. 

It would be too much to say that Caldew and Mer- 
rington reached different conclusions by the same road. 
Up to a certain point their independent deductions from 
the more obvious facts of the case were alike, as was 
inevitable. In every crime there are circumstances and 
events which are as finger-posts, pointing the one way 
to the experienced observer. But their subsequent de- 
ductions from the outstanding facts branched widely, 
perhaps because the younger detective did not read so 
much into circumstances as Merrington. From the 
same facts they had reached different theories about the 
murder. Merrington, by a process of minute and care- 
ful deductions which he had placed before the Chief 
Constable, had convinced himself that the key to the 
murder and the murderer was to be found in London ; 
Caldew believed that the solution of the mystery lay near 
the scene of the events, and perhaps in the house where 
the murder was committed. 

Caldew was aware that he could have given no satis- 
factory reason for holding that belief, apart from the 
point that the murder had been committed by somebody 
who knew the moat-house sufficiently well to get in and 


132 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


out of the place without being seen. But that point was 
open to the explanation that the criminal might have 
provided himself with a plan of the house. Neverthe- 
less, the impression had entered his mind so strongly that 
he could not have shaken it off if he had tried. But he 
did not try. He had sufficient imagination to be aware 
that intuition, in crime detection, is sometimes worth 
more than the most elaborate deductions. 

For the rest, all his speculations about the crime were 
affected by the trinket he had found in the bedroom on 
the night of the murder. But the discovery and sub- 
sequent disappearance of that clue, as he believed it to be, 
had not led him very far as yet. He felt himself in 
the position of a palaeontologist who is called upon to 
reproduce the structure of an extinct prehistoric animal 
from a footprint in sandstone. The vanished trinket was 
a starting-point, and no more. It was a possible hypothesis 
that the person who had dropped the stone and entered 
the death-chamber in search of it was the murderer, but 
so far it was incapable of demonstration or proof. As 
an isolated fact, it was useless, and brought him no nearer 
the solution of the mystery. But, on the other hand, it 
was an undoubted fact, and, for that reason, was de- 
pendent upon other facts for its existence. It was his 
task to find out who had dropped the trinket in the bed- 
room and subsequently returned for it during his own 
brief absence downstairs. To establish those essential 
kindred facts was, he believed, to lay hands on the mur- 
derer of Violet Heredith. 

Caldew walked thoughtfully from the moat-house 
down to the village, intent on commencing his own in- 
dependent investigations into the crime. If the solution 
of the mystery lay near the scene, as he believed, it was 
possible that some clue might be picked up among the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


133 


villagers, to whom the daily doings of the folk in “ the 
big house ” were events of the first magnitude, and who 
might, presumably, be supposed to know anything which 
was likely to throw light on the obscure motive for the 
crime. It was for that reason he directed his footsteps 
towards the fountain head of gossip in an English vil- 
lage — the inn. He flattered himself he would be able 
to extract more local information from the patrons of 
the place than any other detective could hope to do. To 
begin with, he was a Sussex man and a native of the vil- 
lage, and since his return, after so many years’ absence, 
he had spent his evenings at the inn renewing old as- 
sociations and talking to the companions of his boyhood. 

A week’s renewed village life had taught him the ways 
of the place and the war-time drinking customs of the 
inhabitants. Constrained by recent legislation to com- 
press their convivial intercourse into extremely limited 
periods, the village tradesmen, and a fair proportion of 
the surrounding farm labourers and shepherds, had fallen 
into the habit of assembling at the inn at midday, to dis- 
cuss the hard times and drink the sour weak “ war beer ” 
forced on patriotic Britons as an exigent war measure. 

Caldew entered a side door which opened into a small 
snuggery, divided from the tap-room by a wooden parti- 
tion. It was here that the regular cronies and select 
patrons of the establishment sat in comfortable seclusion 
to discuss the crops, the weather, and market prices in 
the broad Sussex dialect, which Caldew, from the force 
of old association, unconsciously fell into again when he 
was with them. 

The room was nearly full, but his appearance threw 
a marked restraint on the group of assembled country- 
men. The conversation, which had obviously been about 
the murder, ceased instantly as he entered and seated 


134 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


himself on one of the forms placed against the partition. 
The innkeeper, who was standing behind the bar in his 
shirt sleeves, nodded uneasily in response to his friendly 
salutation, but the customers awkwardly avoided his 
glance by staring stolidly in front of them. Caldew at- 
tempted to dispel their reserve with a friendly remark, 
but no reply was forthcoming. It was obvious that the 
patrons of the inn wanted neither his conversation nor 
company. One after another, they finished their beer 
and walked out of the inn with the slow deliberate move- 
ments of the Sussex peasant. 

Caldew had not allowed for the change the murder 
had effected on the village mind. His familiar relations 
with the inn customers had changed overnight. He was 
no longer the former village lad, returned to his native 
village, and welcomed from his old association with the 
place, but a being invested with the dread powers and 
majesty of the law, from which no man might deem him- 
self safe. 

Caldew walked out of the snuggery and opened a door 
at the side of the house. It opened into a billiard room 
— a surprising novelty in an English country inn, and the 
outcome of a piece of enterprise on the part of the land- 
lord, who had picked up a small table cheap at a sale, 
and installed it in the clubroom, hoping to profit thereby. 
Again Caldew was conscious of the same distinct air of 
constraint immediately he entered. Two or three men 
who were talking and laughing loudly became as mute 
as though their vocal organs had been suddenly smitten 
with paralysis. The village butcher, who was at the 
billiard table in the act of attempting some complicated 
stroke, stopped abruptly with his cue in mid air, and 
gazed at the detective with open mouth and a look of 
apprehension on his florid face, as though he expected 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


135 


instant accusation and arrest for the moat-house murder. 

With an irritated appreciation of his changed status in 
village eyes, Caldew left the inn and walked home for 
a meal before setting forth to Chidelham to interview 
Mrs. Weyne. 

There was a strong smell of soap suds in his brother- 
in-law’s house, and a vision of his sister’s broad back, in 
vigorous motion over a steaming wash-tub in the kitchen, 
indicated that she was in the throes of her weekly wash. 
She ceased her labours at the sound of footsteps, and 
turned round. 

“Oh, it’s you, Tom. Come for a bite to eat? Jest 
sit you down, and I’ll have dinner on the table in no 
time. I got something good for you. Old Upden, the 
shepherd, brought me a nice rabbit this mornin’, and 
I’ve stewed it. It’s the last one we’ll get, I expect. 
Upden was telling me he ain’t going to snare no more, 
because the boys steal his snares, which ain’t no joke, 
with copper wire at five shillings a pound.” 

Caldew took a seat at the table, and watched his sister 
dish up the dinner. As Sergeant Lumbe’s income was 
not sufficient to permit of all the refinements of civil- 
ized life, such as a separate room for dining, the family 
midday dinner was taken in the kitchen, which was the 
common living room. Mrs. Lumbe’s preparations for the 
meal were prompt and effective. She carried the tub of 
clothes outside, opened the window to let out the steam, 
laid knives and forks and plates on the deal table, then 
put a liberal portion of stewed rabbit into each plate out 
of the pot which was steaming on the side of the stove. 
Dinner was then ready, and brother and sister com- 
menced their meal. 

Caldew ate in silence, and his sister glanced at him 
wistfully at intervals. She had no children of her own, 


136 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


and she had a feeling of admiration for the brother she 
had mothered as a boy, who had gone to the great city 
and become a London detective. From her point of 
view he had achieved great fame and distinction, and 
she cherished in her workbox some newspaper clippings of 
crime cases in which his name had been favourably men- 
tioned by friendly reporters. She hoped he would 
be successful in finding the moat-house murderer. 
She would have liked to question him about the case, 
but she stood a little in awe of him and his London 
ways. 

“ What’s the best way to Chidelham, Kate ? ” asked 
Caldew, as he rose from the table. “ There used to be 
a footpath across by Dormer’s farm which cut off a couple 
of miles. Is it still open?” 

44 It’s still open, Tom. Old Dormer tried to get it 
closed, and went to law about it, but he lost. Be you 
going across to Chidelham ? ” 

44 Yes, I shall ride over on my bicycle this afternoon. 
Do you know where the Weynes live?” 

“The Weynes? Oh, you mean the writing chap that 
bought Billing’s place. Their house stands by itself 
a mile out of the village, just afore you come to Green 
Patch Hill.” 

44 Thanks. I know Billing’s place very well, but I 
wasn’t aware that he had sold it. I’d better be getting 
along. It’s a good long ride.” 

44 What be you goin’ there for, Tom?” asked Mrs. 
Lumbe, with keen curiosity. “ About this case ? ” 

44 Yes,” replied Caldew shortly. 

44 Have you found out anything yet, Tom ? ” pursued 
his sister earnestly, her curiosity overcoming her awe of 
her clever brother. “ Jem was telling me before he went 
to Tibblestone that a ter’ble gre’at detective come down 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


137 


from Lunnon this mornin’, and was stirrin’ up things 
proper. Jem says he’s a detective what travels about 
with the King, and ’e’s got letters to his name because 
of that. Is he on the tracks of the murderer yet, Tom? ” 

“ No, and he’s not likely to, as far as I can see,” said 
her brother a little bitterly. 

“ Dear, dear, that’s a pity, for it’s a ter’ble thing, and 
an awful end for the young lady. Jem came home all 
of a tremble like last night with the ghastly sight of her 
corpse and I had to give him a drop of spirits to help 
him to sleep. We was a talkin’ about it in bed, and 
wond’ring who could ’ave done it. Nobody hereabouts, 
for I’m sure there’s nobody in the village would hurt 
a fellow creature. Besides, the folk at the big house is 
too respected for a living soul to think of harming them.” 

“They are popular with everybody, are they?” said 
Caldew, sitting down again with the realization that he 
was likely to gather as much information about the Here- 
dith family from his sister as he could obtain anywhere 
else. 

“ Oh, yes,” replied his sister. “ It’s only nat’ral they 
should be. Sir Philip is a good landlord, and he and 
Miss Heredith are very generous to folk.” 

“ Is Philip Heredith well-liked in the district ? ” 

“ He’s been away so long that folk don’t know much 
about him. But I never heard anybody say anything 
against him. He’s different from Sir Philip, but he 
seems gentle and kind.” 

“ He used to be a quiet and solitary little chap years 
ago,” remarked Caldew. “ I remember climbing a tree 
in Monk’s Hill wood for a bird’s nest for him. He 
couldn’t climb himself because of his lameness.” 

“ It doesn’t seem like a Heredith to be small and lame,” 
said Mrs. Lumbe thoughtfully. “ I’ve heard those who 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


138 

ought to know declare that Miss Heredith never forgave 
his mother for bringing him into the world with a lame 
foot. The servants at the big house say Mr. Phil has 
always been ter’ble sensitive about his lameness. That's 
what made him so lonely in his ways, though he was 
rare fond of animals and birds. We was all taken aback 
when we heard of his marriage. He always seemed so 
shy of the young ladies. The only girl I ever knowed 
him to take any notice of was Hazel Rath. I have met 
them walking through the woods together.” 

“ Who is Hazel Rath ? ” 

“ The daughter of the moat-house housekeeper. She 
came to the moat-house with her mother nearly ten 
years agone. She was a pretty little thing. Miss Here- 
dith was very fond of her, and sent her to school. Mr. 
Philip was fond of her too, in his way, though, of course, 
there could never a’been anything between them. But 
nobody hereabouts ever expected him to marry a Lon- 
don young lady.” 

“Why not?” asked Caldew. 

“ The Herediths have always married in the county, 
as far back as can be counted. It was thought Miss 
Heredith would make a match between Mr. Philip and 
the daughter of Sir Harry Ravenworth, of the Wilcotes. 
The Ravenworths are the second family in the county, 
and well-to-do. Twould a’been a most suitable match, 
as folk here agreed. But ’twas not to be, more’s the 
pity.” 

Caldew nodded absently. His original interest in his 
sister’s talk was relapsing into boredom because it seemed 
unlikely to lead to anything of the slightest importance 
about the murder. 

“ The young lady he did marry was not a real lady,” 
so I’ve heard say,” continued Mrs. Lumbe, placidly pur- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


139 


suing the train of her reflections. “ She didn’t come 
much into the village, but when she did she walked about 
as though she were bettermost, and everybody else dirt 
beneath her feet. But I have heard that she had to earn 
her own living in London before Mr. Philip fell in love 
with her pretty face. If that’s the truth, she gave her- 
self enough airs afterwards, and did all she could to 
make Miss Heredith feel she’d put her nose out of joint, 
as the saying is.” 

“ What do you mean by that ? ” asked Caldew sharply, 
with all his senses again alert. 

“ Well, you know, Tom, Miss Heredith has been the 
mistress of the moat-house and the great lady of the 
county since Lady Heredith died. But when Mr. Philip 
brought his young wife down from London that was 
all changed. The young lady soon let her see that she 
wasn’t going to be ruled by her, and didn’t care for her 
or her ways. They do say it was a great trial to Miss 
Heredith, though she tried not to let anybody know it.” 

“ Where did you learn this ? ’ Caldew asked abruptly. 

“Lord, Tom, how short you pick me up! Milly 
Saker, who’s parlourmaid at the moat-house, told me in 
the strictest confidence, because she knew I wouldn’t tell 
anybody. And I wouldn’t tell anybody but you, Tom. 
She told me from the very first that she didn’t think the 
two ladies would get on together. They were so differ- 
ent, Milly said, and she was certain Miss Heredith didn’t 
think the young lady good enough to marry into the 
Heredith family.” 

“Did she tell you if they had ever quarrelled?” 

“ I asked her that, and she said no. Miss Heredith is 
always the lady, and she wouldn’t lower herself by quar- 
relling with anybody, least of all with anybody she did 
not consider as good a lady as herself. But Milly says 


140 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


she was sorely tried at times. Milly thought it would 
end up in her leaving the moat-house and marrying her 
old sweetheart, Mr. Musard, who’s just returned from 
his foreign travels. Perhaps you’ve seen him.” 

“ Yes, I’ve seen him,” said Caldew. “ So he is her 
old sweetheart, is he ? ” 

“ So folk used to say,” returned Mrs. Lumbe. “ I 
remember there was some talk of a match between them 
when I was a girl, but nothing came of it. It’s my opin- 
ion that Miss Heredith must have refused him then be- 
cause of his wild days, and he took to his travels to cure 
his broken heart. But they still think a lot of each other, 
as is plain for everybody to see, and go out for walks 
together arm in arm. So perhaps it will all come right 
in the end.” 

With this comfortable doctrine of life, based on her 
perusal of female romances, Mrs. Lumbe got up from 
her seat to clear the table. 

“ I trust it will,” said her brother, but his remark had 
nothing to do with the triumph of true love in the last 
chapter. 

He left the room to get his bicycle to ride to Chidel- 
ham. 


CHAPTER XI 


On his way to Chidelham, Caldew again pondered over 
the murder, and for the first time seriously asked him- 
self whether Miss Heredith could have committed the 
crime. He had glanced at that possibility before, and 
had practically dismissed it on the score of lack of mo- 
tive, but his sister’s story of the differences between Miss 
Heredith and her nephew’s wife supplied that deficiency 
in a startling degree. In reviewing the whole of the cir- 
cumstances by the light of the information his sister 
had given him, it now seemed to him that Miss Heredith 
fitted into the crime in a remarkable way. 

The most important fact leading to that inference was 
that she alone, of all the inmates of the moat-house the 
previous night, was out of the dining-room when the 
murder was committed. That supposition took no 
cognizance of the servants, but Caldew had all along 
eliminated the servants in his consideration of the crime. 
In the next place, it supplied an explanation for the dis- 
appearance of the bar brooch from the bedroom. In all 
likelihood the butler had first acquainted his mistress 
with his discovery of the unlocked staircase door, and 
she, realizing where she had dropped her brooch, had 
seized upon the opportunity to request Musard to call the 
detective downstairs and tell him about the door. In his 
absence she returned to the bedroom for the brooch. 

This theory seemed plausible enough at first blush, 
but as Caldew examined it closely several objections arose 
in his mind. The hidden motive of the crime, as in- 
nocently laid bare by his sister, was strong, but was it 
141 


142 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


strong enough to impel a woman like Miss Heredith, with 
the rigid principles of her birth, breeding, and caste, and 
a woman, moreover, who had spent her life in good 
works, to commit such an atrocious murder? Caldew 
considered this point long and thoughtfully. With his 
keener imagination he differed from Merrington by re- 
lying to some extent on external impressions, and he 
could not shake off his first impression of Miss Heredith 
as a woman of exceptionally good type. He had to 
admit to himself that her graciousness and dignity were 
not the qualities usually associated with a murderer. Re- 
ligion, hypocrisy, smugness, plausibility; these were the 
commonest counterfeit qualities of criminals ; not dignity, 
worth, and pride. 

There was, of course, the possibility that Miss Here- 
dith, grown imperious with her long unquestioned sway 
at the moat-house, had quarrelled with the young wife, 
and committed the murder in a sudden gust of passion. 
The most unlikely murders had been committed under 
the sway of impulse. Caldew recalled that Miss Here- 
dith had been the last person to see the murdered woman 
alive, and nobody except herself knew what had occurred 
at that interview. It might be that the young wife had 
said something to her which rankled so deeply that she 
conceived the idea of murdering her. 

Caldew, on reaching this stage of his reasoning, shook 
his head doubtfully. He had to admit to himself that 
such a theory did not ring true. If Miss Heredith had 
been maddened by some insult at the afternoon’s inter- 
view, she was far more likely to have killed Mrs. Here- 
dith immediately than have waited until dinner-time. 
And, if she had committed the murder, why had she 
gone about it in the manner likeliest to lead to discovery, 
openly leaving her guests a few minutes before, and al- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


143 


lowing herself to be seen afterwards descending the stair- 
case? Even the veriest neophyte in crime usually dis- 
played some of the caution of self-preservation. 

But Caldew was too experienced in criminal investi- 
gation to reject a theory merely because it was contrary 
to experience. There existed presumptions for suspi- 
cion of Miss Heredith which at least warranted further 
inquiry. And, thinking over these presumptions, he ar- 
rived at the additional conclusion that the theory of her 
guilt could also be made to account for the puzzle of 
the open window in Mrs. Heredith’s bedroom. Caldew 
believed that the open window had some bearing on the 
crime. His first impression had been that the murderer 
had entered and escaped by that means. The Virginia 
creeper to which Weyling had directed attention that 
morning had strengthened that belief, in spite of Mer- 
rington’s opinion that the plant would not bear a man's 
weight. But now it seemed to him that Miss Heredith 
might have opened the window for the purpose of throw- 
ing the revolver into the moat so that it should not be 
found. He determined to investigate that possibility 
as soon as he returned to the moat-house. 

He reached his destination only to learn that Mr. and 
Mrs. Weyne had motored over to the moat-house to pay 
their condolences to the family. He remounted his bi- 
cycle and rode back as fast as he could, chagrined to think 
that he had wasted the best part of an afternoon in a fruit- 
less errand. 

It was evening when he reached Heredith again, and 
rode through the* woods towards the moat-house. It 
looked deserted in the gathering twilight. A fugitive 
gleam of departing sunshine fell on the bronze and 
blood-red chysanthemums in the circular beds, but the 
shadows were lengthening across the lawn, and the mist 


144 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


from the green waters of the moat was creeping up the 
stained red walls. 

His ring at the front door was answered by the pretty 
parlourmaid who had been dusting the hall before break- 
fast. He recognized in Milly Saker a village playmate 
of nearly twenty years ago, and he recalled that it was 
she who had told his sister of the difference which had 
existed between Miss Heredith and her nephew’s wife. 

Milly greeted the detective with a coquettish smile of 
recognition. 

“How are you?” she said. “You wouldn’t look at 
me this morning. You seemed as if you didn’t want to 
recognize old friends.” 

Caldew’s mind was too preoccupied to meet these rural 
pleasantries in the same spirit. 

“Is Miss Heredith in?” he asked, stepping into the 
hall. 

“ I shouldn’t be here talking to you if she was,” replied 
the girl pertly. “ She’s gone to the village in the motor- 
car to meet Mr. Musard. She’s just got a telegram to 
say he’s coming back.” 

“ I thought he was going to France,” said Caldew. 

“ Well, he’s not. The telegram says he’s not. So 
Miss Heredith’s gone to meet him by the evening train. 
Tufnell’s out too. I don’t know where he’s poked to, 
but I shan’t cry my eyes out if he never comes back.” 

“Have Mr. and Mrs. Weyne been here?” 

“ Yes. They drove over in their car, and saw 
Miss Heredith anc! Sir Philip. They weren’t here very 
long.” 

“ Where are Superintendent Merrington and Captain 
Stanhill ? ” 

“ In the library. They come in about an hour ago. 
The big gentleman has to go back to London to-night — I 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


145 


heard him say so. A good riddance too He had all the 
servants in the library this morning, bullying them dread- 
fully. ,, 

“ What did he say to you ? ” asked Caldew, with a 
smile. 

“ Nothing,” responded the girl promptly, “ except what 
he said early this morning, when he stopped me in the 
hall here, and put his great ugly hand under my chin, 
and told me he’d have a talk with me by-and-by. But 
he didn’t get the chance, because I was over in the vil- 
lage all the morning with my mother, who’s been ill. But 
he gave all the other girls such a time that they haven’t 
done talking of it yet. Gwennie Harden, who sleeps with 
me, says he must have thought one of us murdered Mrs. 
Heredith, and the cook was so angry with the questions 
he asked her that she was going to give a month’s warn- 
ing on the spot, but old Tufnell talked her over, saying 
that it was only done in the way of duty, no personal 
reflection being intended. Tufnell begged her pardon for 
what she’d had to put up with, and the cook granted it, 
and there the matter ended. But they do say that Mrs. 
Rath — that’s the housekeeper — came out of the library 
looking fit to drop. But Hazel Rath didn’t go into the 
library, although she stayed here last night, and has been 
with her mother all day. Favouritism, I call it. Why 
should they put all us servants through our facings, and 
leave her alone ? ” 

The mention of Hazel Rath’s name recalled to Cal- 
dew’s mind the information his sister had given him about 
the early association between her and Philip Heredith. 
But the import' of that statement, and the significance 
of the piece of news Milly Sa,ker had just given him, 
were not made clear to him until later. At the moment 
his thoughts were fixed on the idea of testing his new 


146 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


theory about the open window while Miss Heredith was 
absent. As he turned away, he asked the girl where 
Sir Philip was. 

> “ He’s sitting with Mr. Phil,” was the reply. 

“ I suppose there is nobody upstairs in the left wing? ” 
he added. 

“ Nobody but the corpse,” responded Milly, with a 
slight shiver. “ Miss Heredith’s had her bedroom shifted. 
Last night she slept downstairs, but this morning she 
gave orders for the white bedroom in the right wing to 
be prepared for her. I reckon she wants to get as far 
away from it as possible, and I don’t blame her.” 

Caldew proceeded upstairs, and entered the death- 
chamber in the silent wing. On his way back from 
Chidelham he had picked up a round stone, which he 
now took from his pocket, intending to throw it from 
the window, and mark the spot where it fell into the 
moat. He opened the window, and looked out across 
the garden. The distance to the moat was much farther 
than he had imagined; so great, indeed, that his own 
shot at the water fell short by several feet. It was im- 
possible that Miss Heredith could have accomplished 
such a remarkable feat as to hurl a revolver across the 
intervening space between the window and the moat. 
No woman could throw so far and so straight. 

This unforeseen obstacle rather disconcerted Caldew at 
first, but on looking out of the window again it seemed 
to him, by the lay of the house, that the window of Miss 
Heredith’s bedroom was closer to the moat than the 
window at which he was standing. As Miss Heredith 
had transferred her bedroom to the other wing, he de- 
cided to go into the room and see if he were right. He 
still clung to his new idea that the revolver had been 
thrown into the moat, although his altered view that it 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


147 


might have been thrown from Miss Heredities window 
meant the abandonment of his other assumption that the 
disposal of the revolver by that means accounted for the 
open window in Mrs. Heredith’s bedroom. Caldew real- 
ized as he left the room that the question of the open 
window still remained to be solved. What he did not 
realize was that he was distorting the facts of the case 
in order to establish the possibility of his own theory. 

The door of the room which Miss Heredith had oc- 
cupied was ajar. He pushed it open and entered. There 
was within that deserted and desolate air which a room 
so quickly takes on when the occupant has vacated it. 
The heavier furniture and the bed remained to demon- 
strate the ugliness of utility after the accessories and 
adjuncts of luxury had been carried away. 

The blind was down and the room in partial darkness. 
Caldew went to the window, raised the blind, and looked 
out. The distance to the moat was appreciably nearer, 
compared with the window of the room he had just left, 
but the distance was still considerable. 

As Caldew turned from the window, with the reluctant 
conviction that he had been nursing an untenable theory, 
a last ray of sunshine shot through the open window, 
causing the dust he had raised by his entrance to quiver 
and gyrate like a host of mad bacilli dancing a jig. The 
shaft of light, falling athwart the dismantled toilet-table, 
brought something else into view — a tiny fragment of 
gold chain dangling from the polished satinwood drawer. 

Caldew pulled the drawer open. Inside was a lady's 
thin gold neck chain, with a bundle of charms and 
trinkets attached to the end, which had evidently been 
left behind and forgotten. He glanced at the chain care- 
lessly, and was about to replace it in the drawer, when 
his eye^was arrested by one of the trinkets. It was a 


148 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


small image, not much over an inch in length; a squat- 
ting heathen god, with crossed arms and a satyr’s face — 
a wonderful example of savage carving in miniature. 

It was not the perfection of the carving or the unusual 
nature of the ornament which attracted Caldew’s atten- 
tion, but the material of which it was composed, a clear 
almost transparent stone, with the faintest possible tinge 
of green. Holding it in the sunlight, Caldew was able 
to detect one or two minute black flecks in the stone. 
There was no doubt about it — the image was of the 
same peculiar material as the trinket he had seen in the 
murdered woman’s room the previous night. 

As he stood there examining the charm, the murmur 
of voices not far away fell on his ears. Looking 
cautiously out of the window, he saw Musard and Miss 
Heredith walk round the side of the house to the garden, 
deep in earnest conversation. Caldew backed away to an 
angle where he was not visible from beneath, and watched 
them closely. Musard was talking, occasionally using an 
impressive gesture, and Miss Heredith was listening at- 
tentively, with a downcast face, and eyes which sug- 
gested recent tears. As she passed underneath the win- 
dow at which he was watching, she raised a handkerchief 
to her face and sobbed aloud. Caldew wondered to see 
the proud and reserved mistress of the moat-house show 
her grief so freely in the presence of Musard, until he 
remembered what his sister had told him of their sup- 
posed early love for each other. And with that thought 
came another. It must have been Musard, the explorer, 
the man who had wandered afar in strange lands in 
search of precious stones, who had brought to the moat- 
house the peculiar stone of which the missing brooch and 
the little image had been fashioned. 

Acting on the swift impulse to take the image to Miss 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


149 


Heredith and see how she received it, Caldew slipped the 
chain into his pocket and hurried downstairs. At the 
bottom of the staircase he was stopped by Tufnell, who 
had evidently been waiting for him to descend. The 
usually imperturbable dignity of the butler was for once 
ruffled, and he looked slightly flushed and dishevelled. 

“ I have been down to the village looking for you,” 
he said, in a querulous tone. The majesty of the law 
had not vested Caldew with any dignity in the old but- 
ler’s eyes. He saw in him only the village urchin of a 
score of years ago, whose mischievous pranks on the 
Heredith estate had been a constant source of worry to 
him. 

The detective appreciated the estimation in which the 
old man held him, and the fact did not tend to lessen his 
own irritation. 

“What did you want me for?”ffie curtly asked. 

“ I did not want you, but the gentlemen in the library 
do. Superintendent Merrington thought you had been 
a long time away, and he sent me down to the village 
to look for you. He is anxious to return to London. 
You will find him in the library.” 

The butler’s cool assumption that it was Merrington’s 
privilege to command, and Caldew’s duty to obey, nettled 
the latter considerably. He felt that Merrington had, 
in his offensive way, deliberately asserted his official au- 
thority in order to humiliate him in his native place. 
Acting on the impulse of anger he replied: 

“ I have some things to attend to before I can see him. 
You can tell him so, if you like.” 

He walked away towards the hall door, conscious that 
the butler was standing stationary by the stairs, watching 
him. When he got outside, he turned his steps towards 
the garden; but brief as had been the interval since he 


i5o 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


had seen Musard and Miss Heredith conversing together 
by the sundial, it had been sufficient to bring the con- 
versation to a conclusion. Miss Heredith was no longer 
to be seen, and Musard was sauntering along the gravel 
walk smoking a cigar. 

Had they seen him at the window, and broken off 
their conference in consequence? It looked as if this 
were so. Miss Heredith must have entered the house 
by another door, because if she had gone in by the front 
door he must have encountered her. Caldew would have 
retraced his steps if Musard had not looked up, and, see- 
ing the detective, waited for him to approach. 

Caldew walked towards him, wondering whether Miss 
Heredith had missed her chain of charms, and had gone 
upstairs to find it. In that case, he reflected grimly, the 
position of the previous night was reversed, and this 
time it was she who'was forestalled. It was an ironical 
situation, truly, but he was to some extent the master of 
it. 

Musard nodded to the detective and proffered his cigar- 
case. Caldew accepted a cigar and admired the case, 
which was made of crocodile skin, worked and dressed 
in a manner altogether new to him. He had never seen 
anything like it in London tobacconists’ shops, and he 
said so. 

“ Native manufacture,” replied Musard, selecting a 
fresh cigar. “ My Chinese boy shot the crocodile which 
provided it. It’s a rare thing for a Chinese to be a good 
shot with a modern English rifle, but my boy would 
carry off anything at Bisley. He never fnisses. It was 
lucky for me that he didn’t that time, because the brute 
came along to bag me while I was swimming in a river. 
'Suey, hearing me call, ran out from the tent with my 
rifle, and shot him from the bank. He got him through 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


I5i 

the eye — the eye and the throat are the only two vulner- 
able spots in a crocodile. A bullet will rebound off the 
head as off a rock.” 

“ Where did this happen ? ” asked Caldew, in an in- 
terested tone. His own knowledge of crocodiles was 
confined to the fact that he had once seen a small one 
in a tank at the Zoological Gardens. 

“ In Zambesi. There are plenty of them there in the 
rivers and mango swamps. Some hunters stake a dog 
overnight by the river bank, and the animal gives them 
warning of the approach of the reptiles by howling with 
terror. It is rather cruel — to the dog.” 

“ Undoubtedly,” said Caldew. 

“ How are you getting on with your investigations in 
this case ? ” continued Musard, abruptly changing the 
conversation. 

Caldew was instantly wary, and • stiffened into an at- 
titude of official reserve, wondering why Musard should 
seek to question him about the murder. 

“ I am an old friend of the Herediths,” continued 
Musard, as though divining the other’s thoughts. “ This 
murder is a very terrible thing for them. I am afraid 
it may mean Sir Philip’s death-blow. He is old and 
feeble, and the shock, and his son’s illness, have had a 
very bad effect on him. I should have gone to France 
to-day for the War Office, but I arranged for somebody 
to go in my place in order to remain with the family in 
their hour of trial. Have you found out anything which 
leads you to suppose you are on the track of the mur- 
dered?” 

“ I am afraid I cannot tell you anything about the in- 
vestigations,” replied the detective cautiously. “ I am 
not in charge of the case, you know.” 

“ I understand,” rejoined the other, with a nod. “ Per- 


152 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


haps I should not have asked you. My anxiety must be 
my excused 

He uttered this apology so courteously and pleasantly 
that Caldew felt momentarily ashamed of his own rigidly 
official attitude. But his instincts of caution quickly re- 
asserted themselves, and he told himself that in this 
sinister case it was his business to be on his guard and 
talk to nobody. 

The situation was terminated by the reappearance of 
Miss Heredith from a door at the side of the house. 
The detective was a little surprised to see her again, for 
he had conceived the idea that she had gone indoors to 
avoid meeting him. She went eagerly to Musard with- 
out noticing him. 

“ Oh, Vincent ! ” she exclaimed, and the look of relief 
on her face was unmistakable. “ Sir Ralph Horton is 
just leaving. He says that Phil has passed the crisis, 
and there is no need for him to stay any longer. Phil 
still needs great care and attention, but Sir Ralph says 
it will be quite safe to leave him in Dr. Holmes’s hands. 
There is no fear for his brain, thank God.” 

“ This is good news,” said Musard. “ Have you told 
Sir Philip?” 

“ Not yet. I thought it better to defer it until after 
dinner. I want you to tell him then.” 

Miss Heredith turned as though to re-enter the house, 
but Caldew, who had been hovering a few paces away 
within earshot of this dialogue, approached her with 
the gold chain in his hand. 

“ Excuse me, Miss Heredith,” he said. “ One of the 
maids told me that you no longer occupied the room up- 
stairs in the left wing, so I took the liberty of going in 
there to see if it was possible for the murderer to have 
escaped by clambering from the window of one room 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


153 


to another, and while I was there I found this chain. 
It was hanging out of a drawer of the toilet-table near 
the window, and as it had obviously been forgotten I 
thought I had better restore it to you.” 

He held it out to her as he finished speaking, keenly 
watching her face for some sign of confusion or trepida- 
tion. But Miss Heredith received the chain calmly, and 
thanked him for returning it. Caldew was disappointed 
at the failure of his test, but he essayed a further shot. 

“ I noticed a very peculiar little image among the 
charms on the chain,” he said hesitatingly. “ I have 
never seen anything like it before, and I couldn’t help 
wondering where it came from.” 

It was a clumsy trap, and he realized it, but he was 
too anxious to achieve his end by more subtle methods. 
There was nothing in Miss Heredith’s calm countenance 
to suggest that she was alarmed or uneasy at his curi- 
osity. She turned to Musard. 

” Mr. Caldew means the strange little image you gave 
me when you arrived, Vincent. What is it?” 

She held out the chain, and the explorer took it in his 
big brown hand. He separated the image from the 
other charms with his forefinger, and turned it over 
carelessly. 

" That is a tiki,” he said. 

The explanation conveyed nothing to Caldew. 

‘‘ I have never heard the word before,” he said. 
“ What is a tiki ? ” 

“ It is the Maori word for the creator of man, and is 
also taken to represent an ancestor,” Musard explained. 
“ The Maoris are to some extent ancestor worshippers, 
and adorn their pahs and temples with large wooden 
images of immense size, supposed to represent some re- 
nowned fighting ancestor. These images are worshipped 


154 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


as gods, and are believed to be visited by the spirits, who 
ascend to converse with them by the hollow roots of a 
pohutukawa tree, which descends into the Maori nether 
regions. The smaller tikis, or, more strictly speaking, 
hei-tiki, such as this, are carved as representations in 
miniature of the larger images, and are worn as neck 
ornaments. They are supposed to render the wearer im- 
mune from the wicked designs of evil spirits.” 

“ From what material are they carved?” said Caldew, 
who had followed this explanation attentively. “ I have 
never seen anything resembling it. It seems as clear 
and colourless as glass, but it emits a faint greenish 
lustre, and there are black flecks in it.” 

“ It is nephrite, or Maori greenstone,” replied Musard. 
“ London jewellers term it New Zealand jade.” 

** Surely this stone is not jade?” said Caldew, in some 
surprise. “ I have seen New Zealand jade ornaments in 
London shops, but they were made from a dull deep 
greenstone, not a bit like this stone, which is clear as 
crystal, and has a lustre.” 

“ There are different sorts of jade,” replied Musard. 
“ The present craze of Society women is for Chinese 
pink jade and tourmalin. A good pink jade necklace 
will readily bring a thousand pounds in Bond Street, 
and it is going to be the fashionable jewel of the season. 
New Zealand nephrite has not yet come into popular fa- 
vour with English ladies, and only the commoner dark 
green variety, which is frequently spurious, is seen here. 
This image was made of the rarer kind of pounamu, as 
the Maoris call it.” 

“ It is very pretty,” said Caldew. “ Have you any 
more of it?” He flattered himself that the assumption 
of carelessness in his tone was not overdone. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


155 

“ No, ,, replied Musard. “ It was the only piece of the 
rare kind I was ever lucky enough to obtain.” 

44 There was another small piece, Vincent,” remarked 
Miss Heredith. 44 You brought it about ten years ago. 
It was the same kind of transparent stone, with black 
flecks in it.” 

44 1 had forgotten. I gave it to Phil, didn’t I ? What 
did he do with it?” 

44 He had it made into a brooch for Hazel Rath, and 
gave it to her as a birthday gift.” 


CHAPTER XII 


As Caldew returned to the house for his interview 
with Merrington, the one clear impression on his mind 
was that the discovery of the owner of the missing 
brooch was the starting point in the elucidation of the 
murder. 

In the library he found Superintendent Merrington, 
Captain Stanhill, Inspector Weyling, and Sergeant 
Lumbe. The sergeant, who looked tired and dirty, was 
apologetically explaining that his visit to Tibblestone had 
been fruitless. 

“ I had my journey for nothing,” he was saying in his 
thick country voice, as Caldew entered. “ I had a wild 
goose chase all over the place, and then it turned out 
that this chap Mr. Hawkins telephoned about was only 
a canvasser for In Memoriam cards for fallen soldiers. 
I come across him at last sitting by the roadside eating 
his dinner and reading a London picture paper. He 
looked a doubtful sort of a customer, sure enough, but 
he was able to prove that he was playing bagatelle in the 
inn last night at the time the murder was committed.” 

Superintendent Merrington dismissed this information 
with a nod, and turned to Caldew. 

44 Did you interview Mrs. Weyne?” he asked. 

44 They were not in,” was the reply. 44 1 was told they 
had motored to the moat-house. Did you see them? ” 

Superintendent Merrington frowned. He had not 
seen the Weynes, and he had not been informed of their 
visit. It was another addition to the sum of untoward 
156 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


157 


incidents which had happened to him since his arrival 
at the moat-house, and he felt very dissatisfied and wrath- 
ful. 

“ I am returning to London by the next train, Caldew,” 
he said, in his authoritative voice. “ Official business of 
importance demands my immediate presence. I will have 
some inquiries made at Scotland Yard about the people 
who have been staying here. In the meantime, you had 
better remain on the spot and continue your inquiries 
under the Chief Constable.” 

“ I shall be very glad of Detective Caldew’s help in 
unravelling this terrible mystery,” Captain Stanhill re- 
marked courteously. 

Caldew drew several conclusions from his chief’s 
speech. Merrington was puzzled about the case, but 
had no intention of taking him into his counsel. Mer- 
rington believed that the murderer had got clear away, 
and, therefore, further local investigation was useless, 
but he deemed it advisable to keep a Scotland Yard man 
on the scene to watch for possible developments, because 
he placed no reliance on the county police. It was ap- 
parent that Merrington thought the murderer had come 
from a distance, and he was going to seek him in Lon- 
don. But he was leaving nothing to chance. He was 
retaining control of the investigations at both ends in 
order to monopolize the glory of the capture. If the 
murderer escaped, Caldew and the county police could 
be made the scapegoats for public indignation. 

But while paying the involuntary tribute of swift 
anger towards these astute tactics of his departmental 
chief, Caldew realized with satisfaction that he was in 
the possession of a piece of valuable information which 
might upset his calculations. 

“ There are several people in the district whom it will 


158 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


be advisable to interview,” continued Merrington, hastily 
consulting his notes. “ In the first place, you must make 
another effort to see the Weynes. Mrs. Weyne may be 
able to give us some valuable information about Mrs. 
Heredith’s earlier life. And I think you should see the 
station-master of Weydene Junction. The murderer 
may have walked across country to the junction rather 
than face the greater risk of subsequent indentification 
by taking the train at one of the village stations on this 
side of it. And you had better see the housekeeper's 
daughter and get a statement from her. I do not sup- 
pose she knows anything about the crime, but she was 
here last night, and she had better be seen. She is em- 
ployed as a milliner at the market town of Stading.” 

“ Do you mean Hazel Rath ? ” inquired Caldew, in 
some surprise. 

“ Yes. She is the daughter of the housekeeper. She 
stayed here last night with her mother, but left to go 
back to her employment by the first train this morning.” 

“ There must be some mistake about that. I under- 
stand she is still in the house.” 

“ Who told you so ? ” 

“ One of the maidservants.” 

“We had better have the maid in and question her. 
What is her name ? ” 

“ Milly — Milly Saker.” 

Merrington touched the bell, and told the maidservant 
who answered it to send in Milly Saker. 

The girl came in almost immediately, looking half de- 
fiant and half afraid. Merrington glanced at her keenly. 

“ You’re the girl I saw dusting the hall this morning,” 
he said. “ Why did you not come in with the other 
servants to be examined ? ” 

“ Because I wasn’t here,” answered the girl pertly. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


159 


“ Where were you ? ” 

“ Down in the village, at my mother’s place.” 

“Who gave you permission to go?” 

“ Mrs. Rath, the housekeeper.” 

“ Did you ask her for leave of absence?” 

“ No. She knew my mother was ill, and she said to 
me after breakfast, * Milly, would you like to go and see 
your mother this morning?’ I said, yes, I should, if 
she could spare me. She told me she could, so I thanked 
her and went.” 

Superintendent Merrington and Captain Stanhill ex- 
changed glances. The same thought occurred to both of 
them. Mrs. Rath, the housekeeper, had assured them 
that she had sent all the servants to the library to be ex- 
amined. Merrington turned to the girl again. 

“ Mrs. Rath’s daughter was staying with her last night, 
wasn’t she ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Is she still here ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Are you quite sure of that?” 

“ Yes, when I was outside about half an hour ago, 
I saw her through the window, sitting in her mother’s 
room.” 

This piece of information conveyed some significance 
to Merrington’s mind which was not apparent to Caldew. 
He paused for a moment, and then continued abruptly: 

“ Where were you last night at the time of the mur- 
der?” 

“ Please, sir, I don’t know nothing about it,” responded 
the girl with a whimper. 

“ Control yourself, my good girl,” said Captain Stan- 
hill soothingly. “ Nobody suggests you had anything to 
do with it.” 


i6o 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


For reply, the girl only sobbed loudly. Superintendent 
Merrington, who had his own methods of soothing 
frightened females, shook her roughly by the arm. 

“ Listen to me,” he sternly commanded. “ Do you 
want to go. to prison? ” 

“ N — o, sir,” responded Milly, between a fresh burst 
of sobs. 

“ Then you’d better stop that noise and answer my 
questions, or I’ll put you under lock and key till you do. 
Where were you last night when the murder was com- 
mitted ? ” 

“ I was waiting at table till dessert was served,” replied 
the girl, thoroughly subdued by the overbearing manner 
of the big man confronting her. 

“What did you do when you left the dining-room?” 

“ I went to the kitchen and was talking to cook for 
a while.” 

“ And what did you do then ? ” 

“ I went up the passage and into the hall to see if 
dinner was finished. I knew Miss Heredith was anxious 
to have dinner over early as they were all going out, and 
I wanted to get dinner cleared away as quickly as I 
could, because I wanted to go out myself. I saw her 
leave the room and go towards the front door, but no- 
body else came out of the dining-room, and I could hear 
somebody talking. So after waiting a little while, and 
seeing nobody else come out, I went back towards the 
kitchen.” 

“ Where were you standing while you were waiting? ” 

“Just at the corner of the passage leading up from 
the kitchen.” 

“You didn’t go up stairs at all?” 

“ No, of course I didn’t. ’Tisn’t my place to go up- 
stairs.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


161 


“ Don’t be saucy, but answer my questions. Did you 
hear the scream and the shot?” 

“ No, I didn’t. I was back in the kitchen before then, 
and the kitchen is right at the back of the house. Cook 
and me didn’t know anything about it till one of the 
girls came running down and told us about what had 
happened.” 

“ Did you see anybody except Miss Heredith in the 
hall or on the staircase of the left wing while you were 
standing at the end of the passage?” 

“ Nobody except Miss Rath.” 

“ Do you mean the housekeeper’s daughter ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ When did you see her ? ” 

“ As I was standing there waiting for a chance to clear 
away the dinner things, she come up from the centre 
passage leading from the housekeeper’s rooms, and 
turned into the hall.” 

“Where was she going?” 

“ I don’t know. I didn’t ask her,” replied the girl, who 
had regained something of her pert assurance. 

“ Did she see you ? ” 

“No. I was standing at the end of the kitchen pas- 
sage, which is close to the right wing. The passage she 
come out of was quite a long way from where I was 
standing, almost in the centre of the house. She turned 
the other way.” 

“ She turned to the right, then, as she emerged from 
the passage, and walked in the direction of the left 
wing'?” 

“ I don’t know where she was going to. All I know 
is that I saw her turn out of the passage, and walk, as 
if might be, up the hall in that direction.” 

“ Did you notice her actions? ” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


162 


“ I can’t say as I did particular, except that she was 
walking in the shadow, on the side nearest to the pas- 
sage she come out of, and seemed to be looking at the 
dining-room door. ” 

“You are sure it was Hazel Rath?” 

“ Oh, it was her all right,” replied Milly confidently. 
“ I recognized her, as well as the dress she was wear- 
ing.” 

“ Was this before or after you saw Miss Heredith 
leave the dining-room ? ” 

“ About ten minutes afterwards.” 

“ Did you mention to anybody that you saw her ? ” 

“ I did not,” replied the girl, as if the matter were one 
of supreme indifference to her. 

“Why not?” 

“ I suppose Miss Rath is free to go where she pleases,” 
said the girl airily. “ She’s privileged. When she used 
to live here she had the run of the house, just like one 
of the family. Tain’t my business to question her com- 
ings and goings.” 

“ Oh, Miss Rath used to live here, did she? How 
long ago ? ” 

“ Till about two years ago, before she went to busi- 
ness.” 

“ And how long did she live here ? ” 

“ It must have been a good seven years or more,” said 
Milly, considering. “ She come here as a little girl when 
her mother come as housekeeper. Miss Heredith took a 
great fancy to her, and she was made quite a pet of 
the house, and did just what she liked. When she grew 
up she used to help her mother, and do little things about 
the house. But she never gave herself airs — I will say 
that.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


163 


44 Very well. You may go now.” 

44 Caldew,” said Merrington quickly, as the door closed 
behind the girl, 44 go and find the housekeeper and send 
her in here. And then keep an eye on her daughter, and 
do not let her out of your sight, until I send for you. 
Then bring her in.” 

When Caldew left the room on his errand, Captain 
Stanhill turned to Superintendent Merrington with a 
pained expression on his face. 

44 Do you suspect — ” he commenced. 

44 1 suspect nobody — and everybody,” was the prompt 
reply. 44 My duty is to find out the facts, and my busi- 
ness is now to ascertain why the housekeeper lied to me 
about her daughter this morning. She was a fool to 
try and trick me. There’s something underneath all this 
which I’ll sift to the bottom before I leave.” 

There was a timid tap, and the door opened slowly, 
revealing the frail black figure of the housekeeper stand- 
ing hesitatingly on the threshold. Her frightened eyes 
were directed to Merrington’s truculent ones as though 
impelled by a magnet. 

“You — you wished to see me?” she stammered. 

44 Yes. Come in.” Merrington curtly commanded. 
“ Close that door, Lumbe. Sit down, Mrs. Rath, I have 
a few questions to ask you.” 

The housekeeper took a seat, with her eyes still fixed 
on Merrington’s face. She looked ill and haggard, but 
the contour of her worn face, and the outline of her 
slender figure suggested that she had once possessed 
beauty and attraction. Merrington, staring at her hard, 
again had the idea that he had seen her long ago in dif- 
ferent conditions and circumstances, but he could not 
recall where. 


164 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


44 Look here, Mrs. Rath,” he commenced abruptly. 44 I 
want to know why you lied to me this morning.” 

“I — I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t come 
here to be insulted.” The housekeeper uttered these 
words with a weak attempt at dignity, but her lips went 
suddenly white. 

“ Don’t put on any fine-lady airs with me, for they 
won’t go down,” said Merrington, in a fierce, bullying 
tone. 44 You know what I mean very well. You told 
me this morning, when I asked you, that you had sent 
in all the servants to be examined. I have just discovered 
that you did not. There was a girl, Milly Saker, whom 
I did not see. Why was that?” 

It seemed to Captain Stanhill that the tension of the 
housekeeper’s face relaxed, and that a look of relief came 
into her eyes, as though the question were different from 
the one she had expected. 

44 1 did not tell you a lie,” she replied, in a firmer tone. 
44 1 sent in all the servants who were in the house at the 
time. Milly was not at home.” 

44 Where was she ? ” 

44 She went across to the village to see her mother, 
who is ill.” 

44 With your permission, I presume?” 

44 Yes.” 

44 Why did you permit her to go? ” 

44 The girl’s mother was very ill, and needed her daugh- 
ter.” 

44 You let her go, although I had told you I wanted to 
question all the servants ? ” 

44 No, it was before you told me that I gave Milly 
permission to have the morning off,” responded Mrs. 
Rath quietly. 

44 Is that the true explanation ? ” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


165 


44 Yes.” 

44 Is it as true as your other statement ? ” 

44 What other statement ? ” 

44 The statement you made to me this morning when 
you assured me your daughter had left this house to re- 
turn to her employment at Stading ? ” said Merrington, 
with a cruel smile. “ That wasn’t true, you know. How 
do you describe that untruth ? Asa temporary aberration 
of memory, or what?” 

The housekeeper looked up with swift, startled eyes, 
and her thin hand involuntarily clutched the edge of the 
table in front of her, but she did not speak. 

“ You lied about that, you know,” continued Merring- 
ton. “ I’ve found out your daughter has been in the 
house all day. Why did you tell me a lie? Come, out 
with it ! ” 

“ You are too abrupt, Merrington,” said Captain Stan- 
hill, interposing with unexpected firmness. “ You have 
frightened her. Come, Mrs. Rath,” he said gently, “ can 
you not give us some explanation as to why you misled 
us this morning?” 

“ Because I didn’t want my daughter to be drawn into 
this dreadful thing,” she exclaimed wildly. “ I suppose 
it was very foolish of me,” she added, in a more com- 
posed voice, as though reassured by the kindly look in 
Captain Stanhill’s eyes, *‘ but I really didn’t think it mat- 
tered. My daughter knew nothing about the murder and 
as she is highly strung I did not want her to be upset.” 

“ Where was your daughter last night when the mur- 
der was committed ? ” asked Merrington. 

“ In my room.” 

“ Did either of you hear the scream or the shot ? ” 

“ No, my rooms are a long way from the left wing, 
and we were sitting with the door shut.” 


1 66 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ Then when did you learn about the murder ? ” 

** Very soon after it happened. One of the maid- 
servants came and told me.” 

“ And you say that your daughter was with you at the 
time, and had been with you a considerable time before? ” 
“ Yes.” 

“ I think that will do, Mrs. Rath, I have given you 
every opportunity, but you still persist in telling false- 
hoods. Your daughter was seen walking up the hall last 
night in the direction of the left wing shortly before the 
murder was committed. The person who saw her was 
the maid Milly Saker. Was that tne real reason why 
you gave Milly leave of absence to visit her mother this 
morning — so that she should not tell us what she knew ? ” 
“ It is not true,” gasped the housekeeper. “ My 
daughter was not out of my rooms last night, I assure 
you that is the truth.” 

“ I wouldn’t believe you on your oath,” retorted Mer- 
rington. “ Lumbe, go and tell Caldew to bring in the 
girl.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


The girl who entered the room a moment later was 
tall and graceful, with a yearning expression in her soft 
dark eyes, as though in search of a happiness which had 
been denied her by Fate. Her appearance was one of 
unusual refinement. She had not a trace of the coarsened 
blowzy look so common in English country girls; there 
was nothing of rustic lumpishness in her slim figure, and 
there was more than mere prettiness in her exquisite 
small features-, her thick dark hair, her clear white skin 
with a tracery of blue veins in the temples. Her high- 
bridged nose and firm chin suggested some force of 
character, but that suggestion was counteracted by her 
wistful tender mouth, with drooping underlip. The 
face, on the whole, was a paradoxical one, containing 
elements of strength and weakness, and the eyes were 
the index to a strange passionate nature. 

She advanced into the room quietly, with a swift 
glance, immediately veiled by drooped lids, at the faces 
of the police officials who were awaiting her. When she 
reached the far end of the table at which they were 
seated she stopped and stood with her hands clasped 
loosely in front of her, as though waiting to be ques- 
tioned. 

“ Please sit down, Miss Rath,” said Captain Stanhill 
politely. “ We wish to ask you a few questions.” 

The girl seated herself in a chair some distance away 
from her mother, and this time she surveyed the men 
before her with an air of indifference which was ob- 
viously simulated. 


167 


1 68 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


But again she quickly dropped her eyes, for Merring- 
ton was staring at her with a look of amazement, as 
though confronted with a familiar presence whose 
identity he could not recall. He glanced from Hazel to 
her mother, and his eyes fastened themselves fiercely on 
the housekeeper with the satisfaction of a man who had 
solved an elusive puzzle. 

“ So we have met before, Mrs. Rath,” he said. “ You 
are — ” 

“ No, no ! Please keep silent in front of my daugh- 
ter,” broke in the housekeeper hurriedly. 

“ I was not mistaken. I remembered this woman’s 
face this morning, but I could not then recall where I 
had seen her before,” pursued Merrington, turning to 
Captain Stanhill and speaking with a sort of reflective 
cruelty. “ Her daughter’s face supplies the clue. She 
is the image of her mother as I remember her when she 
stood her trial at Old Bailey fifteen years ago. She was 
tried for—” 

“ I beg of you not to say it ! ” Airs. Rath started from 
her seat, and looked wildly around as though seeking 
some avenue of escape from a threatened disaster. 

44 Is it necessary to go into this, Merrington ? ” asked 
Captain Stanhill in his mild tones, glancing from the 
excited woman to his colleague with the troubled con- 
sciousness that he was assisting in a scene which was 
distasteful to him. 

44 Of course it is necessary if we want to get at the 
truth of this case,” retorted Merrington. 44 You needn’t 
be concerned on Mrs. Rath’s account,” he went on, with 
a kind of savage, disdainful irony. “ A woman who has 
been tried as an accessory to murder is not likely to be 
squeamish. Her name is not Rath. It is Theberton — 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


169 


Mary Theberton. She and her husband were tried at 
Old Bailey fifteen years ago for the murder of a man 
named Bridges. The trial made a great stir at the time. 
It was known as * The Death Signal Case 

Caldew looked at the housekeeper with a new interest. 
He readily recalled the notorious case mentioned by 
Merrington. Theberton was an Essex miller, who, hav- 
ing discovered that his young wife was in the habit of 
signalling his absence to Bridges by means of a candle 
placed in her window, had compelled her to entice him 
to the cottage by the signal, and was then supposed to 
have murdered him by throwing him into the mill dam. 
But though Bridges was seen entering the cottage and 
was not seen afterwards, the charge of murder failed 
because the detectives were unable to find his body. 
Theberton protested his innocence ; Mary Theberton said 
her husband locked her in her room before admitting 
Bridges, and she knew nothing of what took place be- 
tween the two men. 

There was much popular sympathy with her during 
the trial as the belief gained ground that the relations be- 
tween her and Bridges were innocent, though indiscreet; 
the outcome of a craving for sympathy which had led 
an unhappy young wife to confide her troubles to a 
former schoolfellow. She was the daughter of an ar- 
chitect, and had been reared in refinement and educated 
well, but she had been disowned by her father for marry- 
ing beneath her. Her husband ill-used her, and her 
story was that she had sought the assistance of an old 
schoolfellow in order to go to London to earn a living 
for herself and her little daughter. When the trial was 
over Theberton emigrated, and his wife disappeared, al- 
though there was some talk of putting on foot a public 


170 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


subscription for her. This was the end of “ The Death 
Signal Case,” for the mystery of the disappearance of 
Bridges was never solved. 

Caldew wondered by what strange turn of Fortune’s 
wheel the woman before him had come to be house-, 
keeper at the moat-house. It was certain that Miss Here- 
dith knew nothing of the black page in her past, because 
Miss Heredith, in spite of her kind heart and rigid church 
principles, was the last person to appoint anybody with 
a tainted name to a position of trust in her household. 
She was too proud of the family name to do such a 
thing. The fact that the housekeeper had held the post 
so long without discovery was proof of the ease with 
which identity could be safely concealed from every- 
thing except chance. Although her nervous demeanour 
suggested that she had been walking on a razor edge 
of perpetual suspense in her quiet haven, ever dread- 
ing detection, it seemed to Caldew that she might have 
gone undiscovered to her grave but for a trick of Fate 
in selecting Superintendent Merrington to investigate the 
moat-house murder. Fate, after its cruel fashion, had 
left her on her razor edge for quite a long while before 
toppling her over, and Caldew reflected that he had been 
made the instrument of her fall. 

. But what lay beyond the exposure of the housekeep- 
er’s identity? Why had she deceived Merrington about 
her daughter’s presence in the house? Was it only the 
fear that Merrington would recognize her in her early 
likeness to her daughter, or were her falsehoods intended 
to deceive the detectives about Hazel’s movements at the 
time of the murder? What would the girl say? The 
situation was full of strange possibilities. 

While these reflections were passing through Caldew’s 
head there was silence in the room, broken only by the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


171 

clock on the mantelpiece ticking loudly, with pert in- 
difference to human affairs. Merrington, after dragging 
the hidden and forgotten tragedy to light, remained quiet, 
watchfully noting the effect on mother and daughter. 
The mother stood without a word or gesture, her hand 
stiffened in arrested protest, like a woman frozen into 
silence. The girl’s look was directed towards her mother 
with the fixity of gaze of a sleeper awakened in the 
horror of a bad dream. At least in their stillness they 
were both in accord. Then Hazel glanced wonderingly 
at the faces of the others in the room, with the fatigued 
indifference of a returning consciousness seeking to re- 
gain its bearings. This phase passed, and in the sudden 
wild burst of tears which followed was the belated real- 
ization of the meaning of her mother’s exposure; the 
shame, the agony, the disgrace which it implied. With 
a quick movement she rose from her seat, walked across 
to her mother, and caught hold of her hand. 

“ Mother ! ” she said. 

But her mother turned away from her, and, sinking in 
her chair, covered her face in her hands with a shamed 
gesture, like a woman cast forth naked in the light of 
day. 

“ Never mind your mother just now,” said Merring- 
ton, as the girl bent over as though to sooth her. “ Please 
return to your seat and answer my questions.” 

Hazel turned round at the sound of his voice, but 
stood where she was, regarding him anxiously. 

“ You stayed here last night with your mother, I under- 
stand ? ” Merrington continued. 

“ Yes.” 

“ When did you arrive here ? ” 

“ Yesterday afternoon.” 

“Where from?” 


172 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ From Stading, by train. I had an afternoon off, 
and I came to see my mother.” 

“ How long is it since you visited her previously ? ” 

“ It must be about three months,” said Hazel, after a 
short reflection. 

“ Do you always allow three months to elapse be- 
tween your visits ? ” 

“ No.” There was a trace of hesitation in the re- 
sponse. 

“ You used to come oftener? ” 

41 Yes.” 

“ How often ? ” 

“ Nearly every week.” This time the hesitation before 
the reply was plainly apparent. 

“ Why did you allow so long a time to elapse between 
this visit and the last one when you had previously been 
in the habit of seeing your mother nearly every week?” 

Hazel again hesitated, as though at a loss for a reply. 

“ I have been so busy,” she murmured at length. 

“ Is this your first visit to the moat-house since Mrs. 
Heredith came here to live?” 

“ Yes.” The response was so low as to be almost 
inaudible. 

Caldew, who was the only person in the room with 
the deeper knowledge to divine the drift of these ques- 
tions, realized with something of a shock that Merring- 
ton, with fewer facts to guide him, had reached his ab- 
solute conclusion about the events of the last half-hour 
while he had wandered perplexedly in a cloud of sus- 
picions. The mental jump had been too great for him, 
but Merrington had not hesitated to take it. Caldew 
waited eagerly for the next question. It was some time 
in coming, and when it did come it was not what Caldew 
expected. As though satisfied with the previous answers 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


173 

he had received, Merrington branched off on another 
track. 

“How did you spend last night?” he asked abruptly. 

“ I do not understand you.” There was the shadow 
of fear in the girl’s dark eyes as she answered. 

“ I will put it more plainly then. How did you occupy 
the time between your arrival at the moat-house and 
bedtime? ” 

“ I spent it with my mother in her rooms.” 

“Were you there all the time?” 

It seemed to Caldew that the elder woman’s attitude 
was that of a listener. Though she still kept her face 
buried in her hands, her frame slightly moved, as though 
she were listening to catch the reply. 

“ Yes.” The word was spoken hurriedly, almost de- 
fiantly, but the girl’s eyes wavered and fell under Mer- 
rington’s direct glance. 

“ May I take it, then, that you were in your mother’s 
room at the time Mrs. Heredith was murdered ? ” 

This time Hazel did not reply audibly, but a faint 
movement of her head indicated an affirmative. 

“ What would you say if your mother admits that you 
left her room before the murder was committed, and 
that she did not see you until afterwards ? ” 

It was a clever trap, Caldew reluctantly conceded, this 
idea of playing off the mother and daughter against each 
other, but one that he would have hesitated to use. The 
effect was instantaneous. Before the girl could frame 
her frightened lips in reply, her mother lifted her head 
sharply. 

“ I didn’t say so ! Don’t answer him, Hazel, don’t 
tell him. Oh ! ” Too late the wretched woman realized 
that she had betrayed her daughter, and she sank into 
a stupefied silence. 


174 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ Your mother has let the cat out of the bag.” said 
Merrington to the girl, in a bantering tone. ‘ Come, 
now,” he added, changing swiftly into his most trr^Hnt 
mood. “ We may as well have the truth, first 
You were seen last night going up the hall in the d 
of the left wing just before the murder was committed* 
Do you admit it? ” 

“ I do.” The admission was made in a low buc calm 
tone. 

“ Then your last answer was untrue. What were you 
doing in the hall at that time ? ” 

Hazel, staring straight in front of her, did not reply, 
but her quickly moving breast betrayed her agitation. 

“ Did you hear me? I asked what were you doing in 
the hall last night.” 

“ I shall not tell you.” 

“ Did you go upstairs ? ” 

“ I shall not tell you.” 

These replies were given with a firm readiness which 
was in striking contrast to her previous hesitation. She 
was like a person who had been forced on to a danger- 
ous path she feared to tread, and had summoned fortitude 
to walk it bravely to the end. 

“Of course you realize the position in which you place 
yourself by your silence? ” The quiet gravity with which 
Merrington put this question was, similarly, in the strang- 
est contrast to his former hectoring style. “ It is my 
duty to warn you that you are placing yourself in a grave 
situation. Once more, will you answer my questions ? ” 

“ I will not.” The answer was accompanied by a ges- 
ture which contained something of the carelessness of 
despair. 

“ Then you must abide the consequences.” He turned 
to Captain Stanhill and Caldew. “ It will be necessary 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


175 

to search the housekeeper's rooms. Lumbe, you remain 
here and take charge of these two women. Do not allow 
either of them to leave the room on any pretext. You 
had better keep the door locked until we return.” 

He strode out of the room followed by Captain Stan- 
hill and Caldew, to the manifest trepidation of two maid- 
servants outside, who had plainly no business there. It 
was apparent that Milly Saker had been talking, and 
that strange rumours were agitating the moat-house un- 
derworld. 

“Where are the housekeeper's rooms?” said Mer- 
rington, abruptly accosting one of the fluttered girls. 
“ Come now, don't stand gaping at me like a fool, but 
take us there directly.” 

The terrified girl went quickly ahead along a corridor 
leading from the main hall. Turning down a narrower 
passage near the end she paused outside a closed door 
and said: 

“ This is the housekeeper’s room, sir.” 

“ Stop a minute,” said Merrington. “ Does the house- 
keeper occupy only one room ? ” 

“ No, sir, there are two. A sitting-room, with a bed- 
room opening off it.” 

“ She has no other room in any other part of the 
house? ” 

“ Oh, no, sir.” 

“ That will do. You may go.” 

The maid needed no second bidding, but scuttled back 
towards the corridor like a scared hen making for cover. 
Merrington flung open the door in front of him and en- 
tered. 

The room was well and simply furnished in the style 
of the house, but the personal belongings and the bind- 
ings of some books suggested a mind not out of harmony 


176 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


with the refinement of its surroundings. Merrington, 
with a swift and comprehensive glance around him, be- 
gan to upset the neat arrangement and feminine order 
of the apartment with a thorough and systematic search. 

Caldew watched him for a moment, and then walked 
across to the door of the inner room and entered it. The 
bedroom was large and airy, and the appointments struck 
the note of dainty simplicity. Caldew was quick to no- 
tice a girl’s hat, with a veil attached, cast carelessly on 
the toilet-table. 

He made a circuit round the bed and approached the 
table to look at the hat. A tight knot and a slight tear 
in the gossamer indicated that it had been discarded 
very hastily, and Caldew wondered whether Hazel had 
it on, waiting for an opportunity to slip away from the 
moat-house, when he had knocked at the door to sum- 
mon her to the library. 

As he put the hat down his eye fell on a pincushion 
by the mirror, and he gave a start of surprise. In the 
midst of hatpins at various angles he saw the little brooch 
which had disappeared from the death-chamber. The 
stone with the greenish reflection shone clearly against 
the blue; and gold shot-silk of the pincushion ; the por- 
tion of the clasp which was visible revealed the begin- 
ning of the scratched inscription of “ Semper Fidelis.*’ 
The absence of any attempt to conceal the brooch was 
proof that its owner was under the delusion that no- 
body had seen it lying in the death-chamber. Caldew 
felt a thrill of professional vanity at the success of 
his ruse. 

His own name uttered in a peremptory shout from 
the next room caused him to pick up the brooch and 
hasten thither. The first sight that met his eye was the 
flushed triumphant face of Merrington bending over 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


1 77 


some articles on the table. Caldew’s view of the objects 
was obscured by Captain Stanhill, who was also ex- 
amining them, but he guessed by the attitude of both 
men that a valuable find had been made. He advanced 
eagerly to the table and saw, lying between them, a small 
revolver and a handkerchief. The white cambric of the 
handkerchief was stained crimson with blood. 

The room was in great disorder. Superintendent Mer- 
rington, in the impetuosity of his search, had reduced the 
previous order to chaos in the course of a few minutes. 
Drawers had been opened and their contents strewn 
about the floor, rugs and cushions had been flung into 
a corner of the room, and the doors of a cabinet had 
been forced. Even the pictures on the wall had been 
disarranged, and some of the chairs were knocked over. 

“Where did you find these things ? ” asked Caldew, 
picking up the revolver and examining it. 

“ In that gimcrack thing over there.” Merrington 
pointed to a slight, elegant writing-table standing in a cor- 
ner of the room. “ Isn’t it a typical female hiding-place? 
About as safe as burying your head in the sand. The 
drawer had been locked and the key taken away, but it 
was quite easy to open. The lock is a trumpery kind 
of thing, with the bolt shooting into the soft wood.” 

“ I see that the revolver is still loaded in five cham- 
bers,” said Caldew, as he put down the weapon. 

“ Yes, and the sixth has been recently discharged. We 
don’t require much clearer evidence than that. And 
look at this handkerchief. The blood on it is hardly 
dry yet.” 

Caldew took the handkerchief in his hand. As Mer- 
rington remarked, the blood on it was hardly dry. It was 
a small linen square, destitute of feminine adornment ex- 
cept for a dainty “ H R ” worked in silk in one corner. 


i 7 8 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


The letters were barely visible in the blood with which 
the whole handkerchief was saturated. 

“ I wonder how she got the blood on the handker- 
chief ? ” said Caldew. “ Did she try to stop the bleed- 
ing after shooting Mrs. Heredith? ,, 

“ It would be just like a woman to do so,” grunted 
Merrington. " Women are fond of crying over spilt 
milk — especially when they have spilt it themselves. 
However, that’s neither here nor there. The point is 
that this is the girl’s handkerchief, and this is the re- 
volver with which she shot Mrs. Heredith.” 

“ But what was her motive for committing such an 
atrocious crime?” asked Captain Stanhill in bewilder- 
ment. 

“ Jealousy,” responded Merrington promptly. “ I saw 
the possibility of that motive as soon as I heard Milly 
Saker’s story, and learnt that Hazel Rath had lived for 
some years in the moat-house. Young Heredith and she 
must have been thrown together a lot before the war, 
and there was doubtless a flirtation between them which 
probably developed into an intrigue. There are all the 
materials at hand for it — a well-born idle young man, a 
girl educated above her station, a lonely country-house, 
and plenty of opportunity. I know the type of girl well. 
These half-educated protegees of great ladies grow up 
with all the whims and caprices of fine females, and their 
silly little heads are easily turned. Probably this girl 
imagined that young Heredith was so captivated by her 
pretty face that he would marry her. When she learnt 
that she had been dropped for somebody else she brooded 
in secret until her unbalanced nature led her to commit 
this terrible crime. Moreover, she is the daughter of a 
woman with a queer past, who has been living under an 
assumed name for the past fifteen years.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


179 

“ Do you think mother and daughter have acted in 
collusion in this murder?” Caldew asked. 

44 That is a question I would not care to answer off- 
hand,” responded Merrington thoughtfully. 44 Undoubt- 
edly the mother shielded the daughter and lied to save 
her, and she obviously knew that the girl was absent from 
her room at the time the murder was committed. How 
far this implies guilty knowledge, or the acts of an ac- 
complice, we are not yet in a position to say. We will 
arrest the daughter, and detain the mother — for the 
present, at all events. Whether we charge the mother 
as well as the daughter will depend on our subsequent 
investigations. It will be no novelty for the mother to 
be charged as accessory in a murder case,” concluded 
Merrington, with a grim smile. 

44 We have no direct evidence that the girl went up- 
stairs last night,” said Caldew, with a reflective air. 
44 Milly Saker did not see her going upstairs, and ap- 
parently nobody saw her coming away.” 

44 No direct evidence, it is true. But the presumptive 
evidence is so strong that it is hardly needed. In the 
first place, Milly Saker saw her going down the hall in 
the direction of the left wing just before the murder was 
committed. Next day — this morning — the housekeeper 
sent Milly Saker out of the way before she could be ques- 
tioned by the police. That act suggests two inferences. 
First, Mrs. Rath, as she calls herself, had some inkling 
that Milly Saker saw her daughter in the hall on the 
previous night, and secondly, that Mrs. Rath feared, in 
the light of subsequent events, to let it be known that 
her daughter was seen walking down the hall before the 
murder was committed. From these inferences we may 
conclude that, even if the mother had no actual knowledge 
of the crime, she believed that her daughter was guilty. 


i8o 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


Her subsequent actions to-day confirm that theory in 
every respect. And, of course, the recovery of this re- 
volver and the girl’s handkerchief in her mother’s rooms, 
where she slept last night, is the strongest possible proof 
that the girl shot Mrs. Heredith.” 

“Of course there can be no doubt of that. It would 
be impossible to find a stronger case of circumstantial 
evidence,” said Caldew earnestly. “ But here is a piece 
of direct evidence. Look here ! ” He produced the little 
brooch from his pocket and placed it on the table beside 
the revolver and the handkerchief. “ This is the brooch 
I told you about. It is the brooch I saw in Mrs. Here- 
dith’s room which disappeared while I was downstairs. 
I found it stuck in a pincushion in the next room, beside 
the girl’s hat. She must have realized that she dropped 
it in the murdered woman’s bedroom, and seized the op- 
portunity to return for it while I was out of the room. 
That is a piece of direct evidence that she was in Mrs. 
Heredith’s bedroom.” 

“ So you were right about the brooch. I owe you an 
apology for that, Caldew,” said Merrington. He placed 
the little trinket in his big hand, and turned it over with 
his finger. The inscription on the back caught his eye, 
and he held it closer to read it. “ Semper Fidelis ! ” he 
exclaimed. “ The words are typical of the girl. The 
wishy-washy sentiment would appeal to her, and she’s 
of that partly educated type which thinks a Latin tag 
imposing. I wonder who gave it to her? Oh, I have 
it! It was probably a gift from young Heredith, and 
she added the inscription on her own account so as to 
enhance the value of the gift and keep her ‘ Faithful 
Always,’ ” 

Once more Caldew reluctantly admitted to himself that 
Merrington’s deductions were more swift and vigorous 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


181 


than his own, but he was secretly annoyed to think that 
the other had gained partly by guesswork the solution of 
a clue which had caused him so much thought and per- 
plexity. 

“ The brooch is no more direct evidence than the re- 
volver and handkerchief,” continued Merrington. “ The 
girl, unless she is a born fool, is not likely to admit own- 
ership of any one of them. She would be putting the 
rope round her own neck to do so.” 

“ I realize that,” replied Caldew. “ But I think that 
she might be trapped into giving away that she owns the 
brooch. Women are very impulsive where the loss of 
ornaments is concerned, and then their actions are in- 
stinctive. I have frequently noticed it.” 

” And how do you propose to find out ? ” asked Mer- 
rington. 

“ By asking her.” 

‘‘ You’ll get nothing out of this girl for the asking,” 
replied Merrington. “ She runs deeper than that, or I am 
very much mistaken. However, ask your own questions, 
by all means, after I have questioned her about the re- 
volver and the handkerchief. Let us get back to the 
library.” 

They returned to the library. Sergeant Lumbe opened 
the door in response to their knock, his face furrowed 
with the responsibilities of office. Mother and daughter 
were sitting where they had left them, but the elder 
woman had regained some measure of composure, and 
was staring drearily in front of her. She did not look 
at the police officials as they entered, but Hazel glanced 
towards them, and her eyes fell on the revolver and 
handkerchief which Merrington carried in his hand. It 
seemed to Caldew that her face remained unmoved. 
Merrington walked over to her. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


182 


“ You must consider yourself under arrest on a charge 
of murdering Mrs. Heredith,” he said, in quiet, almost 
conversational tones. “ This revolver and this handker- 
chief were found in your mother’s sitting-room. If you 
have any explanation to make you may do so, but it is 
my duty to warn you that any statement you make now 
may be used in evidence against you later on.” 

“ I have nothing to say,” replied the girl simply. * 

“ You decline to say how this revolver came into your 
possession, or make any explanation about the blood- 
stains on this handkerchief ? ” 

" Yes.” 

“ Do you also refuse to tell us what you have done 
with the brooch you were wearing last night ? ” added 
Caldew. 

The girl, with an impulsive instinctive gesture, hastily 
put her hand to the neck of her blouse, then, realizing 
that she had unconsciously betrayed herself, she let it 
fall slowly to her side. 


CHAPTER XIV 


The popular fallacy which likens circumstantial evi- 
dence to a chain naturally found no acceptance in the 
mind of Superintendent Merrington. If a link in a chain 
snaps, the captive springs free, but if he is bound by a 
rope it is necessary for all the strands to be severed be- 
fore liberty can be regained. 

Merrington remained at Heredith to weave additional 
strands for the rope of circumstantial evidence by which 
Hazel Rath was held for the murder of Violet Heredith. 
It was a good strong case as it stood, but Merrington 
had seen too many strong ropes nibbled through by sharp 
legal teeth to leave anything to chance. If the circum- 
stances against Hazel Rath remained open to an alterna- 
tive explanation — if, for example, the defence suggested 
that the mother was implicated in the crime and the daugh- 
ter was silent in order to shield her, it might be difficult 
to obtain a conviction. Merrington knew by wide ex- 
perience how alternative theories weakened the case of 
circumstantial evidence, no matter how strong the pre- 
sumption from the known facts appeared to be. 

A useful strand in circumstantial evidence is motive, 
and it was motive that Merrington sought to prove 
against Hazel Rath. His own inference about the crime, 
swiftly and boldly reached shortly before he arrested her, 
was that the girl was in love with Phil Heredith, and 
had murdered his young wife through jealousy. Hazel’s 
silence in the face of accusation supported that theory, 
in his opinion. She was ashamed to confess, not the 
183 


184 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


crime, but the hopeless love which had inspired it. 
Women were like that, Merrington reflected. A woman 
who dared to commit murder would blush to admit, even 
to herself, that she had given her love to a man who was 
out of her reach. But it is one thing to hold a theory, 
and another thing to prove it in the eyes of the law. As 
Hazel Rath was not likely to help the Crown establish 
motive by confessing her love for Philip Heredith, it was 
left to Superintendent Merrington to establish his theory, 
by all the independent facts and inferences he was able 
to bring to light. 

This proved more difficult than he anticipated. He had 
visualized the situation with excellent insight up to a cer- 
tain point, and he had imagined that it would not be a 
difficult matter to obtain proofs of the existence of an 
early flirtation or intrigue between Phil Heredith and 
the pretty girl who had occupied an anomalous position 
in the moat-house. But a further examination of the 
inmates of the household failed to furnish any proofs in 
support of that supposition. Merrington could readily 
understand Miss Heredith and her brother denying such 
a suggestion ; but the fact that none of the servants had 
seen anything of the kind was fairly convincing proof 
that no such relation existed. 

No class have a keener instinct for scandal than the 
servants of a country-house. They have opportunities of 
seeing hidden things which nobody else is likely to sus- 
pect. And the moat-house servants asserted, with com- 
plete unanimity, that there had been nothing between 
Phil Heredith and Hazel Rath during the time the girl 
had lived at the moat-house. Their relations had been 
friendly, but nothing more. There was no record of 
secret looks, stolen kisses, or surprised meetings to sup- 
port the theory of a mutual flirtation or furtive love. It 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


185 


was impossible to doubt that Phil Heredith’s attitude to 
the girl who had occupied a dependent position in his 
home had been actuated by no warmer feeling than a 
sort of brotherly regard. 

Merrington, versed by long experience in forming an 
estimate of character from second-hand opinion, was 
forced to the conclusion that Phil Heredith was not the 
type of young man to betray the innocence or trifle with 
the feelings of a young and unsophisticated girl. The 
servants’ testimony revealed him as gentle and courteous, 
but shy and reserved, not fond of company, and im- 
mersed in his natural history pursuits. 

Merrington, however, had less difficulty in proving to 
his own satisfaction that Hazel Rath had been secretly 
in love with Phil Heredith almost since the days of her 
childhood. There was, to begin with, the greenstone 
brooch which Caldew had picked up in the bedroom 
after Mrs. Heredith had been murdered. The members 
of the household were in the custom of making the girl 
little presents on her birthday anniversary, and Phil had 
given her the piece of greenstone, set in a brooch, on 
her birthday six years before. There was no secret about 
it; the gift had been chosen on the suggestion of Miss 
Heredith, who told Merrington the facts. What was un- 
known was the addition of the inscription, “ Semper 
Fidelis,” which must have been scratched on the brooch 
subsequently by the girl herself as a girlish vow of love 
and fidelity of the giver. 

Detective Caldew might have ascertained these facts 
and shortened the police investigations by the simple 
process of asking Miss Heredith about the brooch in 
the first instance. But it is easy to be wise after the 
event, and Superintendent Merrington was the last man 
to quarrel with his subordinate for excess of caution in 


i86 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


the initial stage of the investigations, when it was his 
duty to doubt everybody and confide in nobody. More- 
over, Merrington could not forget that he himself had 
completely underestimated the importance of that clue 
when Caldew had drawn his attention to it. 

A search of Hazel’s bedroom at Stading brought to 
light additional testimony of the love which was likely 
to destroy her. Merrington and Caldew, ruthlessly turn- 
ing over the feminine appointments of this dainty little 
nest, had unearthed from the bottom of the girl’s box 
a square parcel tied with ribbon. The packet contained 
letters and postcards from Phil, principally picture post- 
cards from different Continental places he had visited 
after leaving Cambridge. There were three letters : two 
schoolboy epistles, asking the girl to look after the pets 
he had left at home, and one short note from the Uni- 
versity announcing the dispatch of a volume of poems 
as a birthday gift. There was also a Christmas card, 
dated some years before, inscribed, “ To dear Phil, with 
love, from Hazel.” The girl had kept it, perhaps, be- 
cause she was too shy to bestow it on the intended re- 
cipient, but its chief value in Merrington’s eyes was the 
similarity between the written capital F and the same 
letter in the scratched inscription on the greenstone 
brooch. 

With these discoveries Merrington was satisfied. In 
Hazel Rath’s secret love for Phil Heredith the Crown 
was supplied with the motive for the murder of Phil 
Heredith’s wife. In Merrington’s opinion, the supposi- 
tion of motive was strengthened by the fact that the 
murder was committed during Hazel’s first visit to the 
moat-house since the arrival of the young bride, because 
until Phil’s marriage it had been the girl’s custom to visit 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


187 


the moat-house once a week. Miss Heredith informed 
Merrington that she had questioned the girl on the after- 
noon of the murder about the sudden cessation of her 
visits, and Hazel had replied rather evasively. Merring- 
ton formed the opinion that she had stayed away because 
she could not bear to see the woman whom Phil had 
made his wife. Then, realizing that her prolonged ab- 
sence was likely to be remarked upon, she went across on 
the day of the murder to see her mother. Merrington 
did not think that the murder was premeditated. His 
belief was that when the girl found herself back in the 
surroundings where she had spent such a happy girlhood 
in association with Phil Heredith, she was seized with a 
mad fit of jealousy against her successful rival, and un- 
der its influence had rushed upstairs and murdered her. 
Merrington had also come to the conclusion that her 
mother knew nothing about the crime until afterwards, 
and then she had endeavoured to shield her daughter by 
lying to the police and sending Milly Saker out of the 
way. 

Merrington was unable to account for Hazel's posses- 
sion of the revolver with which Mrs. Heredith had been 
killed. The girl maintained her stubborn silence after 
her arrest, and refused to answer any questions about the 
weapon or anything connected with the crime. The 
police assumption was that she had obtained the re- 
volver from the gun-room of the moat-house shortly be- 
fore the murder was committed. The gun-room was 
underground. It had originally been the crypt of the 
Saxon castle which had once stood on the site where the 
moat-house was built, and was entered by a short flight 
of steps not far from the passage which led to the house- 
keeper's rooms. It was rectangular in shape, and, like 


1 88 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


the majority of gun-rooms in old English country man- 
sions, contained a large assortment of ancient and mod- 
ern weapons. 

Neither Sir Philip Heredith nor Miss Heredith was 
able to state whether the revolver found in the house- 
keeper’s room belonged to the moat-house or was the 
property of one of the guests, and Phil Heredith was too 
ill to be asked. As expert evidence at the inquest defi- 
nitely determined that the bullet extracted from the mur- 
dered woman had been fired from the revolver, Merring- 
ton did not attach very much importance to the question 
of ownership, but before his departure for London he 
arranged that Caldew should return to the moat-house 
later with the revolver for Phil’s inspection, in the hope 
of settling the point before the trial. 

Miss Heredith had undertaken to let the detectives 
know when her nephew was well enough to be seen, but 
as time went on she doubted whether he would ever re- 
cover. Although the delirium which had followed his 
seizure had passed away, he was slow in regaining health, 
and remained in bed, listless and indifferent to everything, 
sometimes reading a little, but oftener lying still, staring 
at the wall. He was passive and quiet, and obedient as 
a child. He seemed to have no recollection of the events 
of the night of the murder, and his aunt did not dare to 
recall them to his mind. 

It was for Phil’s sake, and for him only, that she was 
able to preserve her own courage and calmness through 
the sordid ordeal of the lengthy inquest and the empty 
pomp of the funeral of the young wife. Her own heart 
was bruised and numb within her with the horrors which 
had been heaped upon her. She was like one who had 
seen a pit open suddenly at her feet, revealing terrible 
human obscenities and abominations wallowing nakedly 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


189 


in the depths. It was a poignant shock to her that hu- 
man nature was capable of such infamy. Her startled 
virgin eyes saw for the first time in the monstrous pas- 
sion of sex a force which was stronger than her own 
most cherished beliefs. If a sweet and gentle girl like 
Hazel Rath, who had been brought up under her own 
eye to walk uprightly, could be swept away in the surge 
of tempestuous passion to commit murder, where did 
Faith and Religion stand? 

Almost as much as the effect of the murder did she 
fear the result of this second revelation on her nephew. 
The knowledge that the person accused of killing his wife 
was a girl who had lived in his own home for years was 
bound to have an additionally injurious effect on his 
strange and sensitive temperament. Nobody knew that 
temperament better than Miss Heredith. It was not the 
Heredith temperament. It had been the heritage of his 
mother, a strange, elfin, wayward creature, who had died 
bringing Phil into the world. Like all sisters, Miss Here- 
dith had wondered what her brother had seen in his wife 
to marry her. Phil had all along been a disappointment 
to his father. He had come into the world with a lame 
foot and a frail frame, and the Herediths had always 
been noted for masculine strength and grace. Instead 
of growing up with a scorn for books and an absorbing 
love of sport, like a true Heredith, Phil had early re- 
vealed symptoms of a bookish, studious disposition, re- 
served and shy, with little liking for other boys or boy- 
ish games. His one hobby was an interest in natural 
history. He devoted his pocket money to the purchase of 
strange pets, which he kept in cages while they lived and 
stuffed when they died. 

Miss Heredith had disapproved of this hobby, but had 
suffered it in silence, on the principle that a Heredith 


190 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


could do no wrong, until one winter’s morning she had 
been frightened into her first and only fit of hysterics 
by discovering a large spotted snake coiled snugly on 
some flannel garments she was making for the wife of 
the curate, in anticipation of that unfortunate lady’s fifth 
lying-in. 'Investigation brought to light the fact that 
the snake had been surreptitiously purchased by Master 
Phil from a Covent Garden dealer. He had kept it in a 
box in the stables, but, finding it torpid with cold one 
night, he had put it in his aunt’s work-basket for the 
sake of the warmth. When Miss Heredith recovered 
from her hysterics she had seen to it that Phil was packed 
off to school almost as quickly as the snake was packed 
off to the Zoological Gardens. 

After Phil’s college days his father’s influence had 
obtained for him a Government post which was to be the 
forerunnner of a diplomatic career, if Phil cared for it. 
That was before the war, which upset so many plans. 
In his capacity of assistant departmental secretary, Phil 
had nothing particular to do, and an ample allowance 
from his father to spend in his leisure time. Many 
young men in these circumstances — thrown on their own 
resources in London with plenty of money to spend — 
would have lost no time in “ going wrong,” but Phil’s 
temperament preserved him from those temptations 
which so many young well-born men find irresistible. 
He had a disdain for the stage, he did not care for chorus 
girls, he disliked horse-racing, and he did not drink. 

He sought distractions in another way, and rumours 
of those distractions filtered in due course down to his 
family home in Sussex. It was whispered that Phil 
was ” queer ” — that his old passion for petting reptiles 
and lower animal forms had merely been diverted into 
another channel. He had become a Socialist,- and had 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


191 

been seen consorting with the lower orders at East End 
meetings with other people sufficiently respectable to 
have known better. It was even stated that he had sup- 
ported an Irish revolutionary countess (who had dis- 
covered the first Socialist in Jesus Christ, and wanted 
to disestablish the Church of England) by “ taking the 
chair ” for her when she announced these tenets to the 
rabble in Hyde Park one fine Sunday afternoon. A 
Heredith a socialist and nonconformist! These were 
bitter blows to Miss Heredith, a woman soaked in family 
and Church tradition, but she bore the shock with un- 
compromising front, and was able to make the shortcom- 
ings of Phil’s mother a vicarious sacrifice for the mis- 
deeds of the son. 

But the bitterest blow to Miss Heredith’s family pride 
was the news of Phil’s marriage. Till then she had 
pinned her faith, like a wise woman, in the reformative 
influence of a good marriage. Although a spinster her- 
self, she was aware that there was no better method of 
reducing the showy nettlesome paces of youth to the 
sober jog-trot of middle-age than the restraining in- 
fluence of the right kind of yokefellow. The qualities 
Phil most needed in a wife were those possessed by a 
sober-minded, unimaginative, placid girl of conventional 
mould. Such maidens are not unknown in rural Eng- 
land, and Miss Heredith had not much difficulty in pick- 
ing upon one in the county sufficiently well-born to mate 
with the Herediths. Miss Heredith perfected her plan 
in detail, and had even gone to the length of drafting the 
letter which was to bring Phil down from London to be 
matrimonially snared, when the news came that he had 
snared himself in London without his aunt’s assistance. 

She did not like his wife from the first, and it was 
equally certain that Phil’s wife did not like her. It was a 


192 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


marvellous thing to Miss Heredith that a shallow worldly 
girl like Violet should have captured the heart of a young 
man like her nephew so completely as to cause him to 
alter his ways of life for her. Phil loved Nature, and 
books, and solitary ways; his wife detested such things. 
Phil, in his eagerness to please her, and banish her 
apparent boredom with country life, had suggested ask- 
ing some people from London with whom, at one time, 
he would have had very little in common. Perhaps his 
London life had changed him, but if so, it was a change 
for the worse for a young man, and a Heredith, to be 
so much under the thumb of his wife as to give up his 
own habits of life at her behest. But Phil was so much 
in love that he had done so, cheerfully and willingly. 
Violet’s lightest wish was his law. 

These thoughts, and others like them, passed and re- 
passed through Miss Heredith’s mind as she sat, day 
after day, in her nephew’s sick room. It was her cus- 
tom to take her needlework there of an afternoon, and 
relieve the nurse for two or three hours. But her sew- 
ing frequently lay idle in her lap, and she leaned back in 
her chair, absorbed in thought, glancing from time to 
time at Phil’s worn face on the pillow, where he lay 
like one exhausted and weary, reluctant to return to the 
turmoil of life. He took his food and medicine with the 
docility of a child, and occasionally smiled at his aunt 
when she ministered to him. Gradually he mended and 
increased in bodily strength until he was able to sit up, 
and smoke an occasional cigarette. Sometimes he talked 
a little with his aunt, but always on indifferent subjects. 
He never asked about his wife, or spoke of the murder, 
as he had done in his delirium. It was apparent to those 
about him that his recollection of the events which had 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


193 


brought about his illness had not yet returned. Nature 
had, for the time being, soothed his stricken brain with 
temporary oblivion. 

Then one day the change that Miss Heredith anticipated 
and feared came on him as swiftly as a dream. She en- 
tered the room to find him up and dressed, walking up 
and down with a quick and hurried stride. One glance 
from his quick dark eyes conveyed to her that his wan- 
dering senses had recrossed the border-line of conscious- 
ness, and entered into the horror and agony of remem- 
brance. 

“ Phil, dear,” she said, hastening to his side, “ is this 
wise? ” 

“ How long have I been lying here ? ” he demanded 
impatiently, as though he had not heard her speak. 

“ It is ten days since you were taken ill,” she replied, 
in a low voice. 

“ Ten days ! ” he repeated in a stupefied tone, as though 
unable to realize the import of the lapse of time. “ It 
is incredible! It seems to me as though it was only a 
few hours. What has happened? What has been done 
by the police ? Has the murderer been arrested ? ” 

It came to Miss Heredith with a shock that his dor- 
mant brain had awakened to leap back to the thing which 
had paralysed it, and with that knowledge came the real- 
ization that the dreaded moment for the revelation she 
had to make had arrived. And, like a woman, she sought 
to postpone it. 

“ Phil,” she said weakly, “ do not talk about it — until 
you are stronger.” 

“ I am strong enough not to be treated as a child,” he 
rejoined fretfully, turning on her a sallow face, with a 
bright spot in each cheek. “Is the funeral over?” 


194 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


44 Some days ago,” she murmured, and there was a 
thankful feeling in her heart that it was so. 

Before he had time to speak again there was a tap at 
the door, and a maidservant entered. 

44 Mr. Musard would like to speak to you for a mo- 
ment, ma’am,” she said to Miss Heredith. 

Miss Heredith caught eagerly at the respite. 

44 Tell him I will come at once. Phil,” she added, 
turning to her nephew, 44 1 will send Vincent to you. 
He can tell you better than I. He has been here all 
through your illness, and has looked after everything.” 

She hurried from the room without waiting for his 
reply. She saw the tall form of Musard standing in the 
hall, and went rapidly to him. 

44 Phil has come to his senses, Vincent,” she exclaimed, 
in an agitated voice. 44 He wants to know everything 
that has happened since he was taken ill. What shall we 
do?” 

44 He must be told, of course,” replied Musard, with 
masculine decision. 44 It is better that he should know 
than be kept in suspense. How is he? ” 

44 He seems quite normal and rational. Will you see 
him and tell him ? ” 

44 Yes. As a matter of fact it is advisable that he 
should know everything without delay. I sent for you 
to tell you that Detective Caldew has just arrived to as- 
certain if Phil can identify the revolver. I told him 
Phil was still ill, but he is persistent, and thinks that he 
ought to be allowed to see him. It would be better if 
Phil could see him, and settle the point.” 

44 Oh, Vincent, do you think it is wise?” 

44 Yes. Phil has had a shock, but it is not going to kill 
him, and the sooner he takes up his ordinary life again 
the better it will be for him. Come, now, everything 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


195 


will be all right.” He smiled at her anxious face re- 
assuringly. “ Leave it to me. I will see that nothing 
is done to agitate Phil if I do not think him strong enough 
to bear it. Now, let us go to him.” 

The bedroom door was open and Phil was standing 
near it as though awaiting their appearance. He held 
out his hand to Musard, who was surprised by the 
strength of his grip. He eyed the young, man critically, 
and thought he looked fairly well considering the ordeal 
he had passed through. 

“ I am glad to see you better, Phil,” he said. ‘‘ How 
do you feel? Not very fit yet?” 

“ I am all right,” responded Phil quickly. “ Now, 
Musard, I want you to tell me all that has happened since 
I have been lying here. I am completely in the dark. 
Has anybody been arrested for the murder of my wife? ” 

He spoke in a dry impersonal tone as though of some 
occurrence in which he had but a remote interest, but 
Musard was too keen a judge of men to be deceived by 
his apparent calmness. He thought that it was better 
for him to learn the truth at once. 

“ Yes, Phil,” he said quietly, “ there has been an ar- 
rest. Hazel Rath has been arrested for the murder of 
Violet.” 

“ Who ? ” The tone of detachment disappeared. The 
interrogation was flung at Musard’s head with a world 
of incredulity and amazement. 

“ Hazel Rath, the housekeeper’s daughter.” 

“ In the name of God, why ? ” 

4 * Gently, laddie. Sit down, and take it quietly. I’ll 
tell you all.” 

Phil controlled himself with a painful effort, and took 
a chair near the bedside. 

“ Go on,” he said hoarsely. 


196 THE HAND IN THE DARK 

Musard seated himself on the edge of the bed at his 
side, and entered upon a narration of the circumstances 
which had led to the arrest of Hazel Rath. Phil listened 
attentively, but the expression of amazement never left 
his face. When Musard finished he was silent for a 
moment, and then impetuously broke out: 

“ I feel sure Hazel Rath did not commit this crime.” 

Musard was silent. That was a question upon which 
he did not feel called upon to advance an opinion. Miss 
Heredith was too moved to speak. 

“ Why do you not say something ? ” exclaimed Phil, 
turning on her angrily. “ Surely you do not think Hazel 
guilty ? ” 

“ Oh, Phil,” responded his aunt piteously, “ it seems 
hard to believe, but what else can we think? There 
was the revolver and the handkerchief found in her 
mother’s room, and the little greenstone brooch you gave 
her was picked up in Violet’s bedroom.” 

“Why do they think she has killed her? Tell me 
that!” 

Musard, in his narration of the facts, had omitted 
mention of the supposed motive, but he now made a 
gesture to Miss Heredith to indicate that she had better 
tell Phil. 

‘‘It was because the police believe that Hazel was — 
was in love with you, Phil,” she falteringly said. “ They 
think she murdered Violet in a fit of jealousy.” 

“ Hazel in love with me ? ” He echoed the phrase in 
mingled scorn and amazement. “ That is preposterous. 
If the police have nothing better than that to go on — ” 

“ They have,” interrupted Musard. “ They are going 
on the clues I have mentioned — the brooch, the hand- 
kerchief, and the revolver.” 

“ Where did Hazel get the revolver ? ” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


197 


“ It is thought she got it from the gun-room.” 

“ There are no revolvers in the gun-room,” rejoined 
Phil quickly. “ We have no revolvers, unless father 
bought one recently. What make is it ? ” 

“ The ownership of the revolver is a point the police 
have not yet been able to settle,” returned Musard. “ It 
is only an assumption on their part that Hazel got it 
from the gun-room. They thought it either belonged 
to the house or was left behind by one of the guests. 
Neither your aunt nor I knew, and Sir Philip was unable 
to settle the point. The police thought you might know. 
As a matter of fact, one of the detectives engaged in the 
investigations has just arrived from London and brought 
the revolver with him to see if you can identify it.” 

“I should like to see him. Where is he?” 

” In the library. I will bring him in.” 

Musard left the room and quickly returned with 
Caldew, who entered with a business-like air. 

“ This is Mr. Heredith,” said Musard. 

“ I trust you are better, Mr. Heredith,” said the de- 
tective smoothly. “ I am sorry to trouble you so soon 
after your illness, but there is a point we would like to 
settle before the trial of the woman who is charged with 
murdering your wife. We want, if possible, to estab- 
lish the ownership of the weapon with which the murder 
was committed.” He produced a revolver from the 
pocket of his light overcoat as he spoke. *‘ In view of 
the evidence, the identification of the weapon does not 
matter much one way or another, but it is as well to fix 
the point, if we can. The girl refuses to say where she 
obtained the revolver — indeed, she remains stubbornly 
silent about the crime, and refuses to say anything about 
it. That doesn’t matter very much either, because the 
evidence against her is so strong that she is bound to 


198 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


be convicted. Can you tell me anything about the re- 
volver, Mr. Heredith ? Do you recognize it ? ” 

Phil was turning the revolver over in his hands, ex- 
amining it closely. 

“ Yes,” he said. “ I recognize it. It belongs to Cap- 
tain Nepcote.” 

“Captain Nepcote? Who is he?” 

“ He is a friend of my nephew’s who was staying 
here, but left the afternoon of the day the murder was 
committed,” said Miss Heredith. “ He was recalled to 
the front, I understand. I gave his name to Superin- 
tendent Merrington as one of the guests who had been 
staying here.” 

“ How do you identify the revolver as his property ? ” 
asked Caldew, turning to Phil. 

“ By the bullet mark in the handle. The day before 
my wife was killed it was raining, and some of the guests 
were down in the gun-room shooting at a target with Nep- 
cote’s revolver. He showed us this mark in the handle, 
and said that it had saved his life in France. He was 
leading his men in a night raid on the German lines, and 
a German officer fired at him at close range, but the bul- 
let glanced ofif the handle of the revolver.” 

“ Then there can be no doubt Hazel Rath got it from 
the gun-room,” said Caldew, returning the weapon to his 
pocket. “ Captain Nepcote must have left it behind him 
there, and that is where Hazel Rath found it.” 

“ No, no ! That seems impossible,” said Phil. 

“ Well, I think it is quite possible,” replied Caldew. 

“ Is it your opinion, then, that Miss Rath is guilty ? ” 
demanded Phil, with a note of sharp anger in his voice. 

“Phil!” said Miss Heredith. “You must not excite 
yourself.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


199 

But the young man took no notice of his aunt’s gentle 
remonstrance. His eyes were fixed on the detective. 

“ I have not the least doubt of it,” was the detective’s 
cold response. 

44 1 must say I think you have made a terrible mis- 
take,” Phil said, striding about the room in a state of 
great agitation. “ Hazel would not — she could not — 
have done this thing.” He wheeled sharply around, as 
though struck by a sudden thought. “ Are the jewels 
safe ? ” he added. 

44 Yes,” said Miss Heredith. “ We found Violet’s 
jewel-case locked, so I put it away in the library safe.” 

44 The question of robbery does not enter into the 
crime,” remarked Caldew. “ The motive, as we have 
established it, is quite different.” 

“ I have been told of the motive you allege against 
this unhappy girl,” said Phil indignantly. “ That idea 
is utterly preposterous. Again, I say, I believe that you 
have made a blunder. I do not think Hazel would 
handle a revolver. She was always very nervous of 
firearms.” 

“ That is quite true,” murmured Miss Heredith. 

” A jealous woman forgets her fears,” said the detec- 
tive rather maliciously. “ She didn’t stop to think of 
that when she wanted to use the revolver.” 

“ And where did she get it from? ” asked Phil quickly. 

Caldew shrugged his shoulders, but remained silent. 

" You still persist in thinking that she obtained the 
revolver from the gun-room?” Phil continued. 

” Yes, I do.” 

“Do you not intend to make any further inquiries? 
You had better see Nepcote about the revolver. I will 
give you his address.” 


200 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


44 Captain Nepcote left here to go to the front, and 
we have not heard from him since,” Miss Heredith ex- 
plained to the detective. 

In a calmer moment Caldew might have realized the 
expediency of Phil’s suggestion, but his professional 
dignity was affronted at what he considered the young 
man’s attempt to interfere in the case and direct the 
course of the police investigations. It was the desire to 
snub what he regarded as a meddlesome interposition in 
his own business which prompted him to reply : 

44 It is a matter of small importance, one way or the 
other. It is sufficient for the Crown case to know the 
owner of the revolver. The point is that the murder 
was committed with it, and it was subsequently found 
in the girl’s possession.” 

44 1 have nothing more to say to you,” said Phil. 

44 Are you convinced now, Phil ? ” asked Miss Here- 
with sadly, when Caldew had taken his departure. 44 It 
was hard for me to believe at first, but everything seems 
so certain.” 

44 1 am not at all convinced,” was the stern reply. 44 On 
the contrary, I feel sure that some terrible mistake has 
been made. I would stake my life on the innocence of 
Hazel Rath. How can you, who have known her so long, 
believe she would do a deed like this? The detective 
who has just left us is obviously a fool, and I am not 
satisfied that all the facts about Violet’s death have been 
brought to light. I am going to London at once to 
bring another detective to inquire into the case. You 
know more about these things than me, Musard — can 
you tell me of a good man ? ” 

44 If you are determined to bring in another detective, 
you cannot do better than get Colwyn,” replied Musard. 

44 Colwyn — the famous private detective? He is the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


201 


very man I should like. Where is he to be found ? ” 

“ He has rooms somewhere near Ludgate Circus. I 
will write down the address. I think he will come, if he 
is not otherwise engaged.” 

“Why should he refuse?” demanded Phil haughtily. 
“ I will pay him well.” 

“ It is not a question of money with a man like 
Colwyn, and I advise you not to use that tone with him 
if you want his help.” 

“ Very well,” said Phil, pocketing the address Musard 
had written down. “ I will catch the 6.30 evening train 
up. Aunt, you might tell them to giv6 me something to 
eat in the small breakfast-room. I do not want to be 
bothered getting dinner in town.” 

“ Phil, dear, you mustn’t dream of going to London 
in your present state of health,” expostulated Miss Here- 
dith tearfully. “ Why not leave it until you are stronger? 
Vincent, try and persuade him not to go.” 

“ Phil is the best judge of his own actions in a matter 
like this,” replied Musard gravely. 

“ At least let Vincent go with you, Phil,” urged his 
aunt. 

“ I want nobody to accompany me,” replied Phil, speak- 
ing in a tone he had never used to his aunt before. “ I 
will go and get ready. Tell Linton to have the small 
car ready to drive me to the station.” 


CHAPTER XV 


Colwyn had rooms in the upper part of a block of 
buildings on Ludgate Hill, looking down on the Circus, 
above the rookery of passages which burrow tor- 
tuously under the railway arches to Water Lane, Print- 
ing House Square, and Blackfriars. It was a strange 
locality to live in, but it suited Colwyn. It was in the 
thick of things. From his windows, high up above the 
roar of the traffic, he could watch the ceaseless flow 
of life eastward and westward all day long, and far into 
the night. 

No other part of London offered such variety and 
scope in the study of humanity. The City was stodgy, 
the Strand too uniform, Piccadilly too fashionable, and 
the select areas for bachelor chambers, such as the Temple 
and Half Moon Street, were backwaters as remote from 
the roaring turbulent stream of London trfe as the Sussex 
Downs or the Yorkshire Moors. 

In addition to these things, the spot offered a fine 
contrast in walks to suit different moods. There was 
that avenue of wizardry, Fleet Street, whose high-priests 
and slaves juggled with the news of the world; there 
was the glitter of plate-glass fronts between the Circus 
and St. Paul’s, the twilight stillness of the archway pas- 
sages and their little squeezed shops, the isolation of 
Play House Yard and Printing House Square, the bustle 
of Bridge Street, and the Embankment. From his win- 
dow Colwyn could see the City shopgirls feeding the 
pigeons of St. Paul’s around the statue of Queen Anne. 

202 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


203 


To Colwyn, London was the place of adventures. He 
had lived in New York and Paris, but neither of these 
cities had for him the same fascination as the sprawling 
giant of the Thames. Paris was as stimulating and pro- 
vocative as a paid mistress, but palled as quickly. In 
New York mysteries beckoned at every street corner, 
but too importunately. Neither city was sufficiently dis- 
creet for Colwyn’s reticent mind. But London ! Lon- 
don was like a woman who hid a secret life beneath an 
austere face and sober garments. Underneath her air of 
prim propriety and calm indifference were to be found 
more enthralling secrets than any other city of the world 
could reveal. It was emblematic of London that her 
mysteries, in their strangest aspects and phases, preserved 
the air of ordinary events. 

Colwyn saw nothing extraordinary in this. To him 
Life seemed so perpetually inconsistent that there could be 
nothing inconsistent in any of its events. It was to his 
faith in this axiom, expressed after his own paradoxical 
fashion, that he partly owed some of those brilliant suc- 
cesses which had stamped him as one of the foremost 
criminal investigators of his day. He never rejected a 
story on the score of its improbability. He had seen so 
many unusual things in his career that he once declared 
that it was the unforeseen, and not the expected, which 
occurs most frequently in this strange world of ours. 
That was, perhaps, partly due to the wide gulf between 
human ideals and actions, but, whatever the reason, 
Colwyn never lost sight of the fact that the incredible, 
once it happened, became as commonplace as the meals 
we eat or the clothes we wear. It seemed to Colwyn 
that the unexpected happened too frequently to call forth 
the astonishment with which it was invariably greeted 
by most people. In his experience, Life was almost too 


204 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


prodigal of its surprises, so much so, indeed, as to be 
in danger of reaching the limit of its own resources. But 
he consoled himself, whimsically enough, with the be- 
lief that such an event was too probable ever to happen. 

It was nearly eleven o’clock at night, and Colwyn, get- 
ting up from a table where he had been busily writing, 
walked to the window and looked down on the deserted 
street beneath. It was a nightly custom of his. He 
lived, as he worked, alone, attended only by a taciturn 
manservant who had been with him for many years. He 
accepted with characteristic philosophy the view that a 
man who spent his time unveiling shameful human 
secrets had no right to share his life with anybody. Even 
the articles of furniture of his lonely rooms, if endowed 
with any sort of entity, might have worn a furtive air 
in their consciousness of the secrets they had heard 
whispered in their owner’s ears by those who had sought 
his counsel and assistance in their trouble and despair. 
There had been many such secrets poured forth in those 
lonely rooms, perched up high above the roar of the 
London traffic. It was the Confessional of the incredible. 

As Colwyn stood at the window, the electric bell of 
the front door rang sharply through the empty building. 
Looking down into the street, he saw the figure of a man 
in the doorway beneath. He glanced at his watch. It 
was late for a visitor. He walked to the lift at the 
end of the passage and descended. As he did so, the 
bell in his rooms once more pealed forth beneath the 
pressure of ah impatient hand. 

The visitor, revealed by the light in the hall, was a 
young man muffled in a thick overcoat for protection 
against the sharp autumn wind which was blowing along 
the rain-splashed street. He stepped inside the door as 
Colwyn opened it, and, glancing at the detective from a 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


205 

pair of dark eyes just visible beneath the flap of his soft 
felt hat, said: 

“Are you Mr. Colwyn?” 

“Yes. What can I do for you?” 

“ I am afraid it is a very late hour for a visit,” said 
the other, brushing the rain drops of! his coat as he 
spoke, “ but I should be very glad if you could spare 
me a little time, late as it is. I have come from the 
country to see you.” 

Colwyn nodded without speaking. Strange adventures 
had come to him at stranger hours. He showed the way 
to the lift, switched off the electric light he had turned 
on in the passage, and ascended with his visitor to 
his rooms. There his companion, with an impulsiveness 
which contrasted with the detective’s quiet composure, 
again spoke : 

“ I want your assistance, Mr. Colwyn.” 

“Will you not be seated?” said the detective, as with 
a swift glance he took in the external attributes of his 
young and well-dressed visitor. 

“ Thank you. I regret to disturb you at such a late 
hour, but the train I travelled by was greatly delayed 
by an accident. I thought at first of postponing my visit 
till the morning, but it is so urgent — to me, at all events 
— that I determined to try and see you to-night.” 

“ It was just as well that you did. I may be called 
out of London in the morning.” 

“ Then I am glad that I came. My name is Here- 
dith — Philip Heredith.” 

Colwyn looked at his visitor with a keener interest. 
The London newspapers were # full of the particulars of 
the moat-house crime, and had published intimate ac- 
counts of the Heredith family, their wealth, social posi- 
tion, and standing in the county. Colwyn, as he glanced 


206 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


at Philip Heredith, came to the conclusion that the Lon- 
don picture papers had been once more guilty of de- 
ceiving their credulous readers. The portraits they had 
published of him in no wise resembled the young man 
who was now seated opposite him, regarding him with 
a sad and troubled look. 

“ I have heard of your great skill and cleverness in 
criminal investigation, Mr. Colwyn,” continued Phil earn- 
estly, “ and wish to avail myself of your help. That is 
the object of my visit.” 

Colwyn waited for his visitor to disclose the reasons 
which had brought him, seeking advice. He had fol- 
lowed the newspaper accounts of the murder and police 
investigations with keen interest. The special corre- 
spondents had done full justice to the arrest of Hazel 
Rath. There is no room for reticence or delicacy in 
modern journalism, and no reserves except those dictated 
by fear of the law for libel. Colwyn was therefore 
aware that Hazel Rath figured as “ the woman in the 
case,” and was supposed to have shot the young wife in a 
fit of jealousy. The newspapers, in publishing these 
disclosures, had hinted at the existence of previous tender 
relations between the young husband and the arrested 
girl, in order to whet the public appetite for the “ re- 
markable revelations ” which it was hoped would be 
brought forward at the trial. 

“ I have come to consult you about the murder of my 
wife,” continued Phil, speaking with an evident effort. 
“ I should like you to make some investigations.” 

Colwyn was sufficiently false to his own philosophy of 
life to experience a feeling which he would have been 
the first to admit was surprise. 

“ The police have already made an arrest in the case,” 
he said. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


207 


“ I believe they have arrested an innocent girl.” 

As the young man sat there, he looked so worn and 
ill that Colwyn felt his sympathy go out to him. He 
seemed too boyish and frail to bear such a weight of 
tragedy on his shoulders at the outset of his life. His 
face wore an aspect of despair. 

“If you think that a mistake has been made, you had 
better go to Scotland Yard,” said Colwyn. 

“ I have already spoken to Detective Caldew, but his 
attitude convinced me that it was hopeless to expect any 
assistance from Scotland Yard, so I decided to come to 
you.” 

“ In that case you had better tell me all that you know, 
if you wish me to help you,” said the detective. “ In 
the first place, I wish to hear all the facts of the murder 
itself. I have read the newspaper accounts, but they 
necessarily lack those more intimate details which may 
mean so much. I should like to hear everything from 
beginning to end.” 

In a voice which was still weak from illness, Phil did 
as he was requested, and related the strange sequence of 
events which had happened at the moat-house on the 
night of his wife’s murder. Those events, as he de- 
scribed them, took on a new complexion to his listener* 
suggesting a deeper and more complex mystery than 
the newspaper accounts of the crime. 

From the first the moat-house murder had appealed to 
Colwyn’s imagination and stimulated his intellectual 
curiosity. There was the pathos of the youth and sex 
of the victim, murdered in a peaceful country home. 
The terrible primality of murder accords more easily 
with the elemental gregariousness of slum existence; its 
horror is accentuated, by force of contrast, in the tender 
simplicity of an English sylvan setting. Colwyn’s chief 


208 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


interest lay in the fact that, although the case against 
Hazel Rath was as strong as circumstantial evidence 
could make it, the supposed motive for the crime was 
weak. But he reflected that there did not exist in hu- 
man life any motive sufficiently strong to warrant the 
commission of a crime like murder. Probably no great 
murder had ever been justified by motive, in the sense 
that incitement is vindication, though human nature, ever 
on the alert in defence of itself, was prone to accept 
such excuses as passion and revenge as adequate motives 
for destruction. The point which perplexed Colwyn in 
this particular case was whether the incitement of jeal- 
ousy was sufficient to impel a young girl, brought up in 
good social environment, which is ever a conventional 
deterrent to violent crime, to murder her rival in a sud- 
den gust of passion. 

“ Now, let me hear your reasons for thinking that the 
police have made a mistake in arresting Hazel Rath,” 
the detective said, when Phil had concluded his narration 
of the events of the night of the murder. “ The case 
against her seems very strong.” 

“ Nevertheless, I feel sure she did not do it,” said Phil 
emphatically. “ I understand her nature and disposition 
too well to believe her guilty. I have known her since 
childhood. She has a sweet and gentle nature.” 

“ I am afraid your personal opinion will count for very 
little against the weight of evidence,” replied Colwyn. 
” It is impossible to generalize in a crime like murder. 
My experience is that the most unlikely people commit 
violent crimes under sudden stress. Unless you have 
something more to go upon than that, your protestations 
will count for very little at the trial. Criminal judges 
know too well that human nature is capable of almost 
anything except sustained goodness.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


209 


It was the same point of view, only differently ex- 
pressed, that Superintendent Merrington had advanced 
to Captain Stanhill at the moat-house the evening after 
the murder. 

“ I have other reasons for thinking Hazel Rath in- 
nocent, ^ ” replied Phil. “ If she had murdered my wife 
we would have seen her as we rushed upstairs after hear- 
ing the scream and shot. She hadn’t time to escape.” 

“What about the window of your wife’s room?” 

“ It is nearly twenty feet from the ground, so that 
would be impossible.” 

“ How do you account for the brooch being found in 
your wife’s bedroom? Is there any doubt that it be- 
longs to Hazel Rath ? ” 

“ It is quite true that the brooch is hers. I gave 
it to her on her birthday, some years ago. The police 
think that Hazel is in love with me, and murdered my 
wife through jealousy. But that is not true. I have 
known her since she was a little girl, and regarded her as 
a sister.” 

Phil uttered these words with a ringing sincerity which 
it was impossible to doubt. But that statement, Colwyn 
reflected, did not carry them very far. The speaker 
might honestly believe that the feeling existing between 
himself and Hazel Rath was like the affection of brother 
and sister, but he was speaking for himself, and not for 
the girl. Who could read the secret of a woman’s heart? 
The real question was, did Hazel Rath love Philip 
Heredith? There lay a motive for the murder, if she 
did. 

“ Does Hazel Rath still refuse to explain how her 
brooch came to be found in Mrs. Heredith’s bedroom and 
subsequently disappeared ? ” inquired Colwyn after a short 
pause. 


210 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


44 1 understand that she persists in remaining silent,” 
returned the young man. “ Oh, I admit the case seems 
suspicious against her,” he continued passionately, as 
though in answer to a slight shrug of the detective's 
shoulders. “ It is for that reason I have come to you. 
I believe her innocent, and I want you to try and es- 
tablish her innocence.” 

44 1 am afraid I must decline, Mr. Heredith.” A 
sympathetic glance of Colwyn’s eyes softened the 
firm tone of the refusal. 44 Apart from your own belief 
in Miss Rath’s innocence, you have very little to go 
upon.” 

44 There is more than that to go upon,” said Phil. 
“ There is the question of the identity of the revolver. 
Hazel is supposed to have obtained it from the gun- 
room.” 

44 1 know that from the newspaper reports.” 

44 Yes, but you do not know that the detectives have 
not been able to establish the ownership of the weapon 
until to-day. They were under the impression that it be- 
longed to the moat-house, but neither my father nor aunt 
was able to settle the point. Detective Caldew visited 
the moat-house to-day to see if I could identify it. I im- 
mediately recognized it as the property of Captain 
Nepcote.” 

44 Who is Captain Nepcote?” 

44 He is a friend of mine. I knew him in London 
before I was married. He was a friend of my wife’s 
also. He was one of our guests at the moat-house until 
the day of the murder.” 

44 Did he leave before the murder was committed?” 

44 Yes ; some hours before.” 

44 Then how did Hazel Rath obtain possession of his 
revolver? ” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


211 


“ That is what I do not know. I must tell you that 
the day before the murder some of our guests spent a 
wet afternoon amusing themselves shooting at a target 
in the gun-room. They were using Captain Nepcote’s 
revolver. When I told Detective Caldew this, he came 
to the conclusion that Nepcote must have left it there 
after the shooting, and Hazel Rath found it when she 
went to look for a weapon.” 

“ I see. And what is your own opinion ? ” 

“ I do not believe it for one moment.” 

44 Why not?” 

44 For one thing, it strikes me as unlikely that Nepcote 
would forget his revolver when leaving tne gun-room. 
In any case, the police are taking too much for granted in 
assuming, without inquiry, that he did. Caldew told me 
that the question of the ownership of the revolver did 
not affect the case against Hazel Rath in the slightest 
degree.” 

44 Do you know whether the revolver was seen by any- 
body between the time of Captain Nepcote’s departure 
and its discovery in Hazel Rath’s possession?” 

44 1 understand that it was not.” 

44 Do you know whether Captain Nepcote took it from 
the gun-room after the target shooting?” 

44 That I cannot say. I left the gun-room before the 
shooting was finished.” 

44 Let me see if I thoroughly understand the position,” 
said Colwyn. “ In your narrative of the events of the 
murder you stated that all the members of the household 
and the guests were in the dining-room when the murder 
was committed. Nepcote was not there because he had 
returned to London during the afternoon. Nevertheless, 
it was with his revolver that your wife was shot.” 

44 That is correct,” said Phil. 


212 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ If Nepcote did not leave his revolver in the gun- 
room the police theory would be upset on an important 
point, and the case would take on a new aspect. Have 
you any suspicions that you have not confided to me ? ” 

“ I cannot say that I have any particular suspicions,” 
the young man replied. “ I do not know what to think, 
but I should like to have this terrible mystery cleared 
up. I have not seen Nepcote since the day of the mur- 
der to ask him about the revolver. He said good-bye to 
me before he left, and I understood that he had received 
a wire from the War Office recalling him to the front. 
After the murder I was taken ill, as I have told you, 
and it was not until to-day that I was informed of what 
happened during my illness. ,, 

“ I am inclined to agree with you that the case wants 
further investigation,” said Colwyn. 

“ Then will you undertake it ? ” asked Phil. 

The feeling that he was face to face with one of the 
deepest mysteries of his career acted as an irresistible 
call to Colwyn’s intellect. He consulted the leaves of his 
engagement book. 

“ Yes, I will come,” he said. 

Phil glanced at his watch. 

“ I am afraid we can hardly catch the last train to 
Heredith,” he said. 

“ We will drive down in my car,” said Colwyn. 
“ Please excuse me for a few moments.” 

He left the room, and returned in a few moments 
fully equipped for the journey. 

“ Let us start,” he said. 

His tone was decided and imperative, his movements 
quick and full of energy. That was wholly like him, 
once he had decided on his course. 


CHAPTER XVI 


It was so late that Ludgate Circus was deserted ex- 
cept for a ramshackle cab with a drunken driver pouring 
forth a hoarse story of a mean fare to a sleepy police- 
man leaning against a lamp post. The sight of two 
gentlemen on foot when all ’buses had stopped running 
for the night raised fleeting hopes in the cabman’s pessi- 
mistic breast, and changed the flow of his narrative into 
a strident appeal for hire, based on the plea, which he 
called on the policeman to support, that he hadn’t turned 
a wheel that night, and amplified with a profanity which 
only the friendliest understanding with the policeman 
could have permitted him to pour forth without fear 
of consequences. 

He intimated his readiness to drive them anywhere 
between the Angel on one side of London and the Ele- 
phant on the other for three bob, or, being a bit of a 
sport, would toss them to make it five bob or nothing. 
The boundaries, he explained in a husky parenthesis, 
were fixed not so much by his own refusal to travel far- 
ther afield as by his horse’s unwillingness to go into 
the blasted suburbs. As his importunities passed un- 
regarded he damned them both with the terrible earnest- 
ness of his class, and rumbled back into his dislocated 
story with the languid policeman. 

Colwyn kept his car in a garage off the Bridge Street 
archway. Thither they proceeded, and waited while the 
car was got ready for the roads by a shock-headed man 
who broke the stillness of the night with prodigious 
213 


214 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


yawns, and then stood blinking like an owl as he leaned 
against the yard gates watching the detective backing the 
car down the declivity of the passage into Bridge 
Street. Before they had reached it, he banged the gates 
behind him with another tremendous yawn, and went 
back to his interrupted slumber in the interior of a 
limousine. 

It was a fine night for motoring. There was a late 
moon, and the earlier rain had laid the dust and left 
the roads in good condition. Colwyn cautiously threaded 
the crooked tangle of narrow streets and sharp corners 
between Blackfriars and Victoria, but as the narrow 
streets opened into broader ways he increased the speed 
of his • high-powered car, and by the time London was 
left behind for the quiet meadows and autumn-scented 
woods they were racing along the white country roads at 
a pace which caused the roadside avenues of trees to 
slide past them like twin files of soldiers on the double. 

Mile after mile slipped away in silence. Beyond an 
occasional direction of route by Phil there was no con- 
versation between the two men in the car. Phil sat back 
looking straight in front of him, apparently absorbed in 
thought, and the car occupied Colwyn’s attention. When 
they reached the heights above Heredith, Phil pointed to 
the green flats beneath and the old house in a shroud 
of mist. 

“ That is the moat-house,” he said. “ The carriage 
drive is from the village side.” And with that brief 
indication that they were nearing their journey’s end he 
once more settled back into silence. 

Colwyn brought the car down from the rise into the 
sleeping village, and a few minutes later he was driving 
up the winding carriage* way between the rows of droop- 
ing trees. On the other side of the woods the moat- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


215 


house came into view. The moonlight gleamed on the 
high-pitched red roof, and drenched the garden in white- 
ness, but the mist which rose from the waters of the 
moat swathed the walls of the house like a cerement. 
The moon, crouching behind the umbrageous trees of the 
park, cast a heavy shadow on the lawn, like a giant’s 
hand menacing the home of murder. 

Late as the hour was, Tufnell was up awaiting their 
arrival, with a light supper and wine set ready in a small 
room off the library. Phil had telephoned from 
Colwyn’s rooms to say that he was returning with the 
detective, and the butler, as he helped them off with their 
coats, said that rumours of a railway accident had reached 
the moat-house, causing Miss Heredith much anxiety 
until she received the telephone message. 

Colwyn and Phil sat down to supper, with the butler 
in assiduous attendance. The meal was a slight and 
silent one. Phil kept a host’s courteous eye on his guest’s 
needs, but showed no inclination for conversation, and 
Colwyn was not the man to talk for talking’s sake. When 
they had finished Phil asked the butler which room Mr. 
Colwyn was to occupy. 

44 Miss Heredith has had the room next to Sir Philip’s 
prepared, sir.” 

“ No doubt you are tired, Mr. Colwyn, and would like 
to retire,” Phil said. 

44 Thank you, I should. I travelled from Scotland last 
night, and had very little sleep.” 

44 In that case you will be glad to go to bed at once. 
I will show you to your room,” said the young man, rising 
from the table. 

44 Please do not bother,” replied Colwyn, noting the 
worn air and white face of the other. 44 You look done 
up yourself.” 


216 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


44 Miss Heredith was anxious that you should retire 
as soon as you could, sir, so as to get as much rest as 
possible after your journey,” put in the butler, with 
the officious solicitude of an old servant. 

44 Then I shall leave you in Tufnell’s care,” said Phil, 
holding out his hand as he said good night. 

He went out of the room, and Colwyn was left with 
the old butler. 

“ Is it your wish to retire now ? ” the latter inquired. 

“ I shall be glad to do so, if you will show me to my 
bedroom.” 

The butler bowed gravely, and escorted Colwyn up- 
stairs to his bedroom. 

“ This is your room, sir. I hope you will be comfort- 
able.” 

“ I feel sure that I shall,” replied Colwyn, with a 
glance round the large handsome apartment. 

“ Your dressing-room opens off it, sir.” 

“ Thank you. Good night.” 

“ Good night, sir.” The butler turned hesitatingly to- 
wards the door, as though he wished for some excuse to 
linger, but could think of nothing to justify such a course. 
He walked out of the room into the passage, and then 
turned suddenly, the light through the open doorway 
falling on his sharpened old features and watchful eyes. 

“ What is it ? Do you wish to speak to me ? ” said 
Colwyn, with his pleasant smile. 

A look of perplexity and doubt passed over the but- 
ler’s face as he paused irresolutely in the doorway. 

44 1 merely wished to ask, sir, if there is anything else 
I can get for you before I go.” 

His face had resumed its wonted impassivity, and the 
words came promptly, but Colwyn knew it was not the 
answer he had intended to make. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


217 


“ I want nothing further,” he said. 

The butler }>owed, and hurried away. Colwyn stood 
for a few moments pondering over the incident. Then 
he went to bed and slept soundly. 

He was awakened in the morning by the twittering of 
birds in the ivy outside his window. The mist from the 
moat crept up the glasslike steam, but through it he 
caught glimpses of a dappled autumn sky, and in the 
distance a bright green hill, with a trail of white clouds 
floating over the feathery trees on the summit. As he 
watched the rapid play of light and shade on the hill, he 
wondered why the moat-house had been built on the damp 
unwholesome flat lands instead of on the breezy height. 

When he descended later, he found Tufnell awaiting 
him in the hall to conduct him to the breakfast table. In 
the breakfast-room Sir Philip, Miss Heredith, and Vin- 
cent Musard were assembled. The baronet greeted 
Colwyn with his gentle unfailing courtesy, and Musard 
shook hands with him heartily. The fact that Phil had 
brought him to the moat-house was in itself sufficient to 
ensure a gracious reception from Miss Heredith, but as 
soon as she saw Colwyn she felt impelled to like him 
on his own account. It was not the repose and sim- 
plicity of his manners, or his freedom from the profes- 
sional airs of ostentatious notoriety which attracted her, 
though these things had their weight with a woman like 
Miss Heredith, by conveying the comforting assurance 
that her guest was at least a gentleman. There was more 
than that. She was immediately conscious of that charm 
of personality which drew the liking of most people who 
came in contact with Colwyn. In the strong clear-cut 
face of the great criminologist, there was the abiding 
quality of sympathy with the sufferings which spring from 
human passions and the tragedy of life. But, if his 


218 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


serenity of expression suggested that he had not allowed 
his own disillusionment with life to embitter his outlook 
or narrow his vision, his glance also suggested a clear 
penetration of human motives which it would be unwise 
to try to blind. Miss Heredith instinctively realized that 
Colwyn was one of those rare human beings who are to 
be both feared and trusted. 

You will not see my nephew until later,” she ex- 
plained to him as they sat down to breakfast. 44 He is 
far from strong yet, and he has had so little sleep since 
his illness that I am always glad when he is able to rest 
quietly. I looked in his room a few minutes ago and 
he was sleeping soundly, so I darkened the room and left 
him to sleep on.” 

Colwyn expressed his sympathy. His quick intelli- 
gence, gauging his new surroundings and the members 
of the household, had instantly divined the sterling quali- 
ties, the oddities, and class prejudices which made up 
the strong individuality of the mistress of the moat- 
house. He saw, for all her dignified front, that she was 
suffering from a shock which had shaken her to her in- 
most being, and he respected her for bearing herself so 
bravely under it. 

The breakfast progressed in the leisurely way of the 
English morning meal. The tragedy which had darkened 
the peaceful life of the household nearly a fortnight be- 
fore was not mentioned. Colwyn appreciated the tact 
of his hostess in keeping the conversation to conven- 
tional channels, leaving it for him to introduce the ob- 
ject of his visit in his own time. Only at the conclusion 
of the meal, as Miss Heredith was leaving the apartment, 
did she tell him that she hoped he would let her know 
if there was anything he required or wished her to do. 
He thanked her, and said there was nothing just then. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


219 


Later, it would be necessary for him to go over the house, 
under her guidance, if she could spare the time. She 
replied that she could do so after lunch if that would be 
suitable, and went away. Sir Philip followed her, and 
Colwyn and Musard were left alone. 

“ Shall we have a cigar in the garden ? ” said Musard. 
He wished to know more of the man of whom he had 
heard so much by repute, and he believed that tobacco 
promoted sociability. He also desired to find out whether 
Colwyn’s presence at the moat-house meant that Phil had 
succeeded in impressing him with his own belief in the 
innocence of Hazel Rath. 

Colwyn willingly agreed. He realized the difficulties 
of the task ahead of him, and he welcomed the oppor- 
tunity of hearing all he could about the murder from 
somebody who knew all the circumstances. Phil’s per- 
sonal knowledge of the facts did not extend beyond the 
point where he had fallen unconscious in the bedroom, 
and a talk with Musard offered the best available sub- 
stitute for his own lack of first-hand impressions. 

The garden basked in the warmth of a mellow autumn 
sunshine which had dispersed the morning mist. In the 
air was the scent of late flowers and the murmurs of 
bees; the bright eyes of blackbirds and robins peeped 
out from the ornamental yews, and the peacocks trailed 
their plumes over the sparkling emerald lawns. But 
Colwyn and Musard had no thought of the beauty of 
the morning or the charm of the old-world garden as 
they paced across the lawn. It was Musard who 
broached the subject which was engrossing their minds. 

“ It was very good of you to come down here, Mr. 
Colwyn. Your visit is a great relief to Miss Heredith.” 

“ Does Miss Heredith share her nephew’s belief in Miss 
Rath’s innocence?” 


220 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ I would not go so far as to say that, though I think 
his own earnestness has impressed her with the hope that 
some mistake has been made. But her chief concern 
is her nephew’s health, and she is anxious, above all 
things, to remove his mental worry and unrest. The 
mere fact that you have undertaken to make further in- 
quiries into the case will do much to ease his mind.” 

“ I will do what I can. My principal difficulty is to 
pick up the threads of the case. It is some time since 
the murder was committed, and the attendant circum- 
stances which might have helped me in the beginning 
no longer exist. It is like groping for the entrance to 
a maze which has been covered over by the growths of 
time.” 

“ Do you yourself believe it possible that Hazel Rath 
is innocent?” 

44 I have come here to investigate the case. The police 
account for the girl’s possession of Captain Nepcote’s 
revolver, with which Mrs. Heredith was shot, by the 
theory that she obtained it from the gun-room of the 
moat-house shortly before the murder. There is work 
for me to do both here and in London, in clearing up this 
point. It is so important that I cannot understand the 
attitude of Detective Caldew in dismissing it as a matter 
of no consequence. If Hazel Rath were convicted with 
that question unsettled, she would be condemned on in- 
sufficient evidence. It is for this reason I have taken 
her interests into my hands. But, apart from this point, 
I am bound to say that the case against her strikes me 
as a very strong one.” 

“ Yet it is quite certain that Phil Heredith believes her 
innocent,” remarked Musard thoughtfully. 

“ Belief is an intangible thing. In any case, his be- 
lief is not shared by you.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


221 


“How do you know that? ” 

“You would have said so.” 

“ Well, I will go so far as to say that Hazel Rath is 
a most unlikely person to commit murder.” 

“ Murder is an unlikely crime. There is no brand of 
Cain to reveal the modern murderer. Finger-prints are 
a surer means of identification. This unhappy girl may 
be the victim of one of those combinations of sinister 
events which sometimes occur in crime, but I do not 
intend to form an opinion about that until I know more 
about the case. For that reason I shall be glad if you 
will give me your account of everything that happened on 
the night of the murder. Philip Heredities story is in- 
complete, and I wish to hear all the facts.” 

Musard nodded, and related the particulars with an at- 
tention to detail which left little to be desired. His 
version filled in the gaps of Phil’s imperfect narrative, 
and enabled the detective to visualize the murder with 
greater mental distinctness. The two stories agreed in 
their essential particulars, but they varied in some de- 
gree in detail. Colwyn, however, was well aware that 
different witnesses never exactly agree in their impres- 
sions of the same event. Phil had made only an in- 
cidental reference to the dinner-table conversation about 
jewels, and Colwyn was not previously aware that the 
story of the ruby ring had occupied twenty minutes in 
the telling. 

“ How did you come to tell the story ? ” he asked. 

“ Some of the ladies were admiring my ring, and Phil 
suggested that they should hear the story of its dis- 
covery. I had just finished when the scream rang out 
from upstairs, followed by the shot.” 

“ How long was the interval between the scream and 
the shot?” 


222 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ Only a few seconds,” replied Musard. “ Some of 
us started to go upstairs as soon as we heard it, but the 
shot followed before we reached the door of the dining- 
room.” 

Colwyn reflected that this estimate differed from Phil 
Heredith’s, who had thought that nearly half a minute 
elapsed between the scream and the shot. But he knew 
that a correct estimate of the lapse of time is even rarer 
than an accurate computation of distance. 

Musard knew nothing about two aspects of the case 
on which Colwyn desired to gain light. He had seen 
nothing of the target shooting in the gun-room the day be- 
fore the murder, but he thought it quite possible that 
Captain Nepcote’s revolver might have lain there unno- 
ticed until the following night, because the men of the 
house party were a poor shooting lot who were not likely 
to use the gun-room much. He had heard the head 
gamekeeper say that there had been no shooting parties, 
and Tufnell had told him that only one or two of the 
men had brought guns with them. Neither was Musard 
aware whether there existed the motive of wronged 
virtue or slighted affection to arouse a girl like Hazel 
Rath to commit such a terrible crime. He had always 
thought her a sweet and modest girl, but he had seen too 
much of the world to place much reliance on externals, 
and he had had very few opportunities of observing 
whether there had been anything in the nature of a love 
affair between her and Philip. His own view was that 
whatever feeling existed was on the girl’s side only. 

“ If there had been love passages between them, Phil’s 
conscience would not have allowed him to be quite so 
certain of her innocence,” added Musard. “ I told him 
of her arrest, and there can be no doubt that he thinks the 
police have made a hideous mistake in arresting her. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


223 


Detective Caldew refused to admit the possibility of mis- 
take, but Phil shuts his eyes to everything that tells against 
the girl, including her mother’s unpleasant past.” 

“ Did Miss Heredith know anything of her house- 
keeper’s past ? ” 

“ No. Mrs. Rath, as she calls herself, came to Here- 
dith many years ago, took a small cottage, and tried to 
support her daughter and herself by giving lessons in 
music and French. She would have starved if it had 
not been for Miss Heredith, who helped her and her 
little girl, tried to get the mother some pupils, and finally 
took her into the moat-house as housekeeper. Mrs. 
Rath disappeared from the place after her daughter’s 
arrest, when the police had decided that it was not neces- 
sary to detain her, leaving a note behind her for Miss 
Heredith to say that she couldn’t face her after all that 
had happened.” 

Colwyn did not speak immediately. He was examining 
the row of upper windows which looked down on the 
garden in which they were standing. 

“ Is that the window of the room in which Mrs. Here- 
dith was murdered?” he asked, pointing to the first one. 

“ Yes. It is high for a first-floor window, but there 
is a fall in the ground on this side of the house.” 

Colwyn tested the strength of the Virginia creeper 
which grew up the wall almost to the window, and then 
bent down to examine the grass and earth underneath. 

“ Caldew thought at first that the murderer escaped 
from the window, but Merrington did not agree with 
him,” said Musard. 

If the remark was intended to extract an expression 
of opinion from Colwyn it failed in effect, for he re- 
mained silent. He had regained his feet, and was look- 
ing up at the window again. 


224 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ Where is the door which opens on the back staircase 
of this wing?” he said, at length. 

“ At the extreme end. You cannot see it from here. 
It opens on the back of the house.” 

“ According to the newspaper reports of the case, the 
door is always kept locked. Is that correct?” 

“As a general rule it is. But it was found unlocked 
before dinner on the night the murder was committed.” 

“ I was not informed of this before.” 

“ Phil was not aware of it, and Detective Caldew at- 
tached so little importance to it when I told him after 
the murder that I should not have thought it worth men- 
tioning if you had not asked me. Caldew’s point of view 
was that the door had been left unlocked, accidentally, 
by one of the servants, which is quite possible. I un- 
derstand both detectives agree that it had nothing to do 
with the murder, because the door was locked by the 
butler, who discovered it unlocked, fully an hour before 
the murder was committed. If Hazel Rath had attempted 
to escape that way she would have been caught in a 
cul-de-sac , for we rushed upstairs from the dining-room 
immediately we heard the scream.” 

“ Did you search the back staircase ? ” 

“ Almost immediately. It was empty.” 

“ And there is no doubt that the door at the bottom was 
locked?” 

“ None whatever — one of the young men tried it.” 

“ What time did the butler make his discovery ? ” 

“ Shortly before dinner. I do not know the exact 
time.” 

“ Thank you. Now, if you will excuse me, I should 
like to see the room Mrs. Heredith occupied. Is it 
empty ? ” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 225 

“ Yes. The wing has been unoccupied since the night 
of the murder. Shall I show you the way up ? ” 

“ It will not be necessary. I know the way, and I shall 
be there some time.” 

“ In that case I will leave you till lunch-time,” re- 
sponded Musard, as he walked away. 

Colwyn did not go upstairs immediately. He took a 
solitary walk in the woods, thinking over everything 
that Musard had told him. Then he returned to the 
house and mounted the staircase to the left wing. His 
first act was to make a thorough examination of the un- 
used back staircase at the end of the corridor. Then he 
entered the bedroom Mrs. Heredith had occupied. 

The room had the forlorn appearance of disuse. The 
bed had been partly stripped, and the tall-backed chairs, 
in prim linen covers, looked like seated ghosts with arms 
akimbo. Colwyn’s first act was to draw the heavy win- 
dow curtains and open the window. He then com- 
menced an examination of the room in the morning 
sunlight. 

His examination was long and thorough, but it brought 
nothing to light which added to his knowledge of the 
events of the murder. The time went on, and he was 
still engrossed in his scrutiny when the door opened and 
Phil entered the room. 


CHAPTER XVII 


“ Lunch is waiting,” said the young man. “ My aunt 
thought that you did not hear the gong, so I came up 
to tell you.” 

‘‘Miss Heredith was right — I did not hear it. I am 
sorry if I have kept you waiting. I have been so busy 
that I forgot the passing of time.” 

If Phil felt any curiosity as to the matters which had 
engaged Colwyn’s attention in the room where his wife 
had been murdered, he did not express it in words. 

“ My aunt will show you over the moat-house after 
lunch, if you wish,” was what he said. 

“ I should be glad,” returned Colwyn. “ But I am 
reluctant to put Miss Heredith to the trouble.” 

“ Do not think of that,” responded Phil. “ My aunt 
desires nothing better than to show the old place to any- 
body she likes. And she has taken a liking to you.” 

“ It is very good of her. I shall be pleased to accept 
her offer, for I wish to see over the house as soon as 
possible.” 

They had started to descend the stairs. Colwyn, hap- 
pening to glance over the balusters, saw the motionless 
figure of Tufnell standing at the bottom of the stair- 
case partly concealed by the group of ornamental shrubs 
in the hall. His face was turned upwards with an as- 
pect of strained curiosity, but it was immediately with- 
drawn as his eyes encountered Colwyn’s downward gaze. 
A moment later Colwyn saw him enter the dining-room. 

When they reached the foot of the staircase, Colwyn, 
226 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


227 


with an explanatory glance at his soiled hands and dusty 
clothes, promised to join the luncheon party in a few 
minutes. He went to his own room for a hasty toilet, 
and when he descended a few minutes later he again 
saw Tufnell in the hall. The butler, who was giving a 
direction to a servant, met his eye calmly, and hastened 
to open the dining-room door for him. 

There was more conversation at luncheon than at 
the morning meal. The weight of senility relaxed from 
Sir Philip sufficiently to permit him to talk to his guest 
with some brightness. He told Colwyn a story of a sea- 
going ancestor of his who had entertained the Royal 
Family in his own frigate at Portsmouth in honour of 
Sir Horatio Nelson’s victory of the Nile, and how the 
occasion had tempted the cupidity of his own fellow to 
make a nefarious penny by permitting the rabble of 
the town to take peeps at the guests through one of the 
port-holes. It happened that one Jack Tar, eager to gaze 
on his idol Nelson, got his head jammed in the port-hole, 
and broke up the party with a volley of terrible oaths 
and roars for assistance. “ The servant’s name was 
Egg — Dick Egg, but he was a bad egg,” chuckled Sir 
Philip, as he concluded the narrative. He repeated the 
poor joke several times in manifest appreciation. 

Miss Heredith did not smile at the story. She dep- 
recated anything which had the slighest tendency to 
cast ridicule on the family name. That was made abund- 
antly clear after the meal, when Sir Philip had retired 
to his room for his afternoon nap, and the others went 
over the old house. She took Colwyn under her special 
charge, and, forgetful of the real object of the detec- 
tive’s visit, discoursed impressively to him on the past 
glories of the Heredith line. She lingered long in each 
room, all rich in memories of the past, pointing out the ob- 


228 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


jects of interest with loving pride. It \yould have been 
a disappointment to her if she had known that the guest 
who walked beside her, listening to her stories and 
legends of each antique relic and ancient picture, had his 
thoughts fixed on far different matters. Colwyn’s rea- 
sons for seeing the moat-house had little to do with 
ancient oak, carved ceilings, panelled walls, and old fam- 
ily portraits. 

It was not until they descended to the gun-room that 
Colwyn’s keen professional scrutiny suggested, by force 
of contrast, that his former air of interest had been 
largely feigned. There were several underground rooms, 
entered by a short flight of stone steps, with an oak door 
at the top and bottom. The two principal rooms were 
the armoury, full of armour, spears, lances and bows, and 
the gun-room adjoining. What arrested Colwyn’s at- 
tention in the latter room was the display of guns on 
the walls. There were many varieties of them: rifled 
harquebuses, obsolete carbines, flint-lock muskets, and 
modern rifles; in fact, the whole evolution of explosive 
weapons, from the first rude beginnings down to the 
breechloader of the present day. 

“ The Herediths have ever been a family of great 
warriors, Mr. Colwyn,” said Miss Heredith, following 
his glance along the walls. “ Each of those weapons has 
some story of bravery, I might almost say heroism, at- 
tached to it. That sword you are looking at belonged 
to my grand-uncle, who commanded the British Army 
in the Peninsula. He was originally a major in the 14th 
Foot.” 

“ I was under the impression that Wellington com- 
manded in Portugal,” said Musard. 

“ My grand-uncle was Sir Arthur Wellesley’s senior 
officer, Vincent,” responded Miss Heredith. “ He ar- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


229 


rived in Portugal in 1809 to take command, but Sir 
Arthur most culpably failed to have horses ready to 
carry him to the field of battle. In consequence of Sir 
Arthur’s neglect my grand-uncle was compelled to take 
the next boat back to England. There was a question 
asked in the Commons of the day about Sir Arthur’s 
conduct. I do not know what the question was, but the 
answer was in the negative, though I am not quite sure 
what that means. In any case, my grand-uncle was a 
greater soldier than Wellington. My mother often heard 
my grand-aunt say so.” 

“ I notice that there are no revolvers or pistols among 
the weapons on the walls,” said Colwyn. 

“We never had a revolver,” replied Phil. 

“ There are a pair of horse pistols in that case,” said 
Musard, pointing to an oblong mahogany box with brass 
corners, resting on a stand in a niche of the wall. He 
crossed over to the box and fumbled with the brass snibs, 
but was unable to open it. “ The case is locked,” he said. 

“ Perhaps it is only jammed,” suggested Phil. 

“ Oh, no, it is locked fast enough. Do you under- 
stand anything about locks, Mr. Colwyn ? ” 

“ You will have to break it open if you have lost the 
key,” said Colwyn, after glancing at the box. “ It is 
an obsolete type of lock.” 

“ I should have liked to show you those pistols,” said 
Musard. “ They carry as true as a rifle up to fifty yards. 
Their only drawback is that they are a bit clumsy, and 
have a heavy recoil.” 

“I wonder where the key is?” remarked Miss Here- 
dith. “ I must ask Tufnell about it.” 

“Will you tell me where the revolver practice took 
place that afternoon?” said Colwyn, turning to Phil. 

“ They were firing from behind the bagatelle board at 


230 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


a target fixed over there,” said Phil, pointing to the far 
wall. 

“ Who proposed the game ? ” 

“ Nepcote. It was a very wet afternoon, and every- 
body had to stay indoors. He suggested after tea that it 
would be a good way of killing the time before dinner. 
Several of the men and two or three of the girls thought 
it a capital idea, and a sweepstake was arranged. They 
asked me for a revolver, but I told them we had not one. 
One of the officers offered his army revolver, but that 
was objected to as too heavy and dangerous for indoor 
shooting. Then Nepcote said that he had a light re- 
volver in his bag, and he went upstairs to get it. He 
came downstairs with it in his hand, and those who were 
taking part in the sport went downstairs to the gun- 
room. I went with them for a while, but I did not stay 
long.” 

“ Captain Nepcote’s revolver is not an army 
weapon ? ” 

“ Oh, no. It is a very small and slight weapon, 
nickel-plated, with six chambers. It is so light as to 
resemble a toy.” 

“ With a correspondingly light report, I presume. The 
sound of the target practice would not be heard up- 
stairs ? ” 

“ It would be an exceedingly loud report that pene- 
trated to the upper regions through that door,” inter- 
jected Musard, pointing to the oak door with iron clamps 
which gave entrance to the gun-room. “ Besides, there 
is another door at the top of the steps. If they were 
both shut you might fire off every weapon in the place 
without anybody upstairs hearing a sound.” 

Colwyn had listened to Phil’s account of the target 
shooting with the closest attention. He remained silent 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


231 


for some moments, as though he were pondering over 
every point in it. Then he said: 

“ What makes you feel so sure that Nepcote did not 
leave his revolver in this room after the shooting ? ” 

“ He could only have left it on the bagatelle board or 
one of the chairs,” replied Phil earnestly. “ If he had 
done so it would have been seen by somebody.” 

“ Provided anybody entered the gun-room,” put in 
Musard. 

“ Of course there must have been somebody here,” 
rejoined Phil with some warmth. “ The detectives think 
that Hazel did not find it until the following evening. 
Do you suppose nobody visited the gun-room for twenty- 
four hours?” 

“ I think it quite likely with such a poor shooting 
lot — ” Musard commenced, but broke off as he caught 
Miss Heredith’s warning glance. “ All right, laddie,” 
he added soothingly. “ Perhaps you are right, after all.” 

“ I have no doubt I am right,” exclaimed Phil ex- 
citedly. “Do you not think I am right, Mr. Colwyn?” 

“ I think that what you have said about the likelihood 
of the revolver having been seen is quite feasible,” re- 
sponded the detective. “ But there is nothing to be 
gained by discussing that possibility at the present mo- 
ment. Shall we go upstairs again, Miss Heredith ? ” he 
added, turning to her. 

She turned on him a grateful glance for his tact and 
forbearance, and hastened to lead the way from the gun- 
room. The few words between Phil and Musard had not 
only brought sharply back to her all the past horror and 
agony of the murder, but had caused a poignant renewal 
of her apprehensions about her nephew’s health. She 
realized that he was a changed being, moody and irritable, 
and liable to sudden fits of excitement on slight provoca- 


232 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


tion. She felt that Musard had been rather inconsider- 
ate to forget Phil’s illness and cause him to get excited 
by differing from him. 

Her concern was not lessened by intercepting a strange 
glance which Phil cast at Musard when they reached 
the library. Before she had time to reflect on what it 
meant, Phil turned to her and asked her where she had 
put Violet’s jewel-case. 

“ I told you yesterday, Phil, that I brought it down- 
stairs and locked it up,” replied Miss Heredith, with a 
glance at the safe in the corner of the room. 44 I have 
been keeping the keys until you got better.” 

“ Then you might let me have them now,” said the 
young man. “ I should like to see if the jewels are all 
right.” 

“ Why, Phil, of course they are all right,” his aunt 
replied. “We found the jewel-case locked, and not 
tampered with in any way.” 

44 Was Mrs. Heredith’s jewel-case in her bedroom the 
night she was murdered ? ” asked Colwyn. 

44 Yes,” res* >nded Miss Heredith. 44 We found it on 
her toilet-table, where she usually kept it.” 

44 Did it contain valuable jewels?” 

44 It contained a necklace of pearls which was given to 
poor Violet by Sir Philip,” was the reply. 44 It is an old 
family necklace.” 

“ Then I agree with Mr. Heredith that the jewel case 
should be opened-” 

44 Very well. As you think it necessary, I will go to 
my room for the keys.” 

Miss Heredith left the library, and returned in a few 
moments with a small bunch of keys in her hand. She 
went to the safe, unlocked it, and returned to the table 
bearing an oblong silver box of quaint design, with the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


233 


portrait of a stout simpering lady in enamel on the cover. 
Miss Heredith directed Colwyn’s attention to the por- 
trait, remarking that it was a likeness of a princess of 
the reigning house, who had given it and the box to her 
great-uncle, Captain Sir Philip Heredith. 

“ Her Royal Highness held my great-uncle in much 
esteem, Mr. Colwyn,” she added, as she proceeded to 
fit one of the keys into the box. “ He was one of the 
most famous of Nelson's captains. When he died the 
residents of his native town erected a memorial to him. 
It was inscribed with testimony to his worth in a civic, 
military, and Christian capacity, together with a text 
stating that he caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. 
Beneath the text was commemorated his feat in sinking 
the French frigate L’&quille, with every soul on board.” 

“ That hardly seems like causing the widow’s heart to 
sing for joy,” commented Musard. 

“ The reference was to English widows, Vincent,” re- 
plied Miss Heredith, proceeding to open the box with 
loving care. “ At that period of our history we had not 
discovered the good qualities of the French people, which 
have endeared them to — Oh ! ” Miss Heredith broke 
off with a startled exclamation as the lid of the silver 
box fell back, revealing an empty interior. 

It is only in moments of complete surprise that the 
human face fails to keep up some semblance of guard 
over the inmost feelings. At the discovery that the jewel- 
case was empty Miss Heredith’s dignity dropped from 
her like a falling garment, and she stared at the velvet 
interior with half-open mouth and an air of consterna- 
tion on her face. 

“ Oh ! ” she cried again, finding voice after a mo- 
ment’s tense silence. “ The necklace is gone.” 

“ By heaven, this is amazing,” muttered Musard. 


234 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ I thought you said it was safe?” The speaker was 
Phil. He did not look at his aunt as he uttered this re- 
proach, but gazed at the empty box with glowing eyes 
under drawn brows. 

“ Phil, Phil, I thought it was safe — oh, I thought it 
was safe ! ” cried Miss Heredith almost hysterically. 
“ Where is it gone ? Who could have taken it ? The 
box was locked when we saw it upstairs, and the day 
after the funeral I found Violet’s keys at the back of 
the drawer where she always kept them.” 

“ The box may have been locked when you found it, 
but it seems equally certain that it was also empty,” said 
Colwyn. He alone of the excited group was cool enough 
to estimate the awkward possibilities of this discovery. 
“ How was it that the detectives did not open the jewel- 
case on the night of the murder, so as to make quite 
sure that the necklace had not been stolen ? ” 

“ I took the necklace downstairs and locked it away 
before the police arrived,” said Miss Heredith tearfully. 
“ When Detective Caldew came he asked me if anything 
was missing from Violet’s bedroom, and I told him no. 
Of course, I did not dream of anything like this. Oh, 
how I wish now that I had opened the jewel-case at the 
time. But I never thought. I tried the case and found 
it locked, so I thought it had not been touched.” 

“ Really, I am more to blame than Miss Heredith,” 
interposed Musard hurriedly. “ I saw the jewel-case 
first, and I should have thought of having it opened.” 

“ It is a pity you did not inform the detectives about 
the case,” said Colwyn. His face was grave as he real- 
ized how completely the police had been led astray in their 
original investigations by the misunderstanding which 
had concealed an important fact. “ But first let us make 
sure that the jewel-case was empty when it was brought 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


235 

downstairs. How many people have access to this safe, 
Miss Heredith? Is there more than one key?” 

“ There is only one key,” she replied. “ And that has 
heen in my possession since the night of the murder.” 

“ That disposes of that possibility, then. What about 
Mrs. Heredith’s bunch of keys? Have they also been 
in your possession since she was killed?” 

“Yes; I kept them in an upstairs drawer, which was 
locked.” 

“ Can you tell me when you last saw the necklace ? ” 

Miss Heredith reflected for a moment. 

“ Not for some time,” she said. “ Violet did not care 
for it, and rarely wore it.” 

“ The necklace was of pink pearls,” Musard explained. 
“ Their value was more historical than intrinsic, for 
they had become tarnished with age, and the setting was 
old-fashioned. It was for that reason Mrs. Heredith did 
not like it. I was going to take the pearls to London 
the following day to arrange to have them skinned and 
reset.” 

“ When I went into poor Violet’s room that night to 
see if she felt well enough to go to the Weynes’ I asked 
her for the necklace,” said Miss Heredith. “ She re- 
plied that she would give it to me in the morning. If 
she had only given it to me then, she might have been 
alive to-day.” 

“ I should like to hear more about this,” said Colwyn. 
“ Please tell me everything.” 

In response Miss Heredith related to the detective all 
that had passed between the young wife and herself in 
the bedroom before dinner on the night of the murder. 
Colwyn listened attentively, with a growing sense of hid- 
den complexities in the crime revealed at the eleventh 
hour. He saw that the case took on a new and deeper 


236 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


aspect when considered in conjunction with the facts 
which had been so innocently ignored. When Miss Here- 
dith had finished, he asked her when it was first decided 
to send the necklace to London for resetting. 

“ It was the night before the murder," Miss Heredith 
replied. “ Sir Philip suggested that Violet should wear 
the necklace to the dance on the following night, but 
Violet said that the pearls were really too dull to be 
worn. Mr. Musard agreed with her, and offered to take 
it to London and have it cleaned and reset by an expert 
of his acquaintance. Mr. Musard had to return to Lon- 
don on the morning after the dance, so that was the rea- 
son why I went into Violet's room before dinner on the 
night of the party to ask her for the necklace." 

Colwyn considered this reply in all its bearings before 
he spoke. 

“ The best thing I can do is to return to London with- 
out delay and bring these additional facts before Scot- 
land Yard," he said. “They have been misled — un- 
wittingly but gravely misled — and it is only right that 
they should be informed at once. I know Merrington, 
and I will make a point of seeing him personally and 
telling him about the discovery of the missing necklace." 

The little group heard his decision in a silence which 
suggested more than words were able to convey. It was 
Phil who finally uttered the thought which was in all 
their minds: 

“ Are you satisfied that Hazel Rath Is innocent ? ” 

“ I cannot say that," responded the detective quickly. 
“ The loss of the necklace does nothing to lessen the 
suspicion against her unless it can be proved that she 
had nothing to do with its disappearance — perhaps not 
even then. But all the facts must be investigated anew. 
The necklace must be traced, and the point about the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


237 


revolver cleared up. But there is nothing more to be 
done here at present. The field of the investigation now 
shifts to London. I will get ready for the journey, if you 
will excuse me.” 

“ I hope you will continue your own investigations, 
Mr. Colwyn,” said Phil earnestly. “ I am more than 
ever convinced of Hazel Rath’s innocence, but I have 
small faith that the police are likely to establish it — even 
if they attempt to do so. I was not impressed with the 
skill of Detective Caldew, or his attitude when I told 
him that I believed Hazel Rath to be innocent.” 

“ I will continue my investigations in conjunction with 
Scotland Yard, if it is your wish,” the detective replied. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Colwyn was upstairs in his bedroom preparing for his 
return journey to London when a meek knock and an 
apologetic cough reached his ears. He turned and saw 
Tufnell standing at the half-open door. The face of the 
x)ld butler wore a look of mingled determination and 
nervousness — the expression of a timid man who had 
braced himself to a bold course of action after much 
irresolute deliberation. 

“ I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, and his trepidation 
was apparent in his voice. “ But might I — that is to 
say, could you spare me a few minutes’ conversation ? ” 

“ Certainly,” replied the detective. “ Come inside, 
Tufnell. What is it?” 

The butler entered the room and carefully closed the 
door behind him. 

“ I am sorry to interrupt you, sir,” he said. “ But I 
have just heard Miss Heredith give orders for your car 
to be got ready for your return to London, and I knew 
there was no time to be lost. It’s about the — the mur- 
der, sir.” He brought out the last words with an effort. 

“ Go on,” said Colwyn, wondering what further sur- 
prise was in store for him. 

“ It’s about something that happened on that night. 
I wanted to tell you before, but I didn’t like to. After 
the murder was discovered I was sent over to the vil- 
lage to fetch the police and the doctor, and while I was 
hurrying through the woods near the moat-house I 
thought I saw a man crouching behind one of the trees 
238 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


239 


near the carriage drive. He seemed to be looking to- 
wards me. When I looked again he was gone.” 

“ And what did you do ? ” 

“ I called out, but received no answer, so I hurried on.” 

Colwyn scrutinized the butler with a thoughtful pene- 
trating glance. The butler bore the look with the meek 
air of a domestic animal who knows that he is being 
appraised. 

“ Am I the first person to whom you have told this 
story ? ” the detective asked after a pause. 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Why did you not inform the police officers when they 
were investigating the case ? ” 

“ For several reasons, sir. It seemed to me, when I 
came to think it over, that it must have been my fancy, 
and then it passed out of my mind in the worry and ex- 
citement of the house. Then, when I did think of it 
again, I didn’t like to mention it to Superintendent Mer- 
rington, because he was such a bullying sort of gentleman 
that I felt quite nervous of him. Really, for a gentle- 
man who has travelled with Royal Highnesses, as I’ve 
heard tell, and might be supposed to know how gentle- 
men behave, the way he treated the servants while he 
was here was almost too much for flesh and blood to 
bear.” The butler’s withered cheeks flushed faintly at 
the recollection. “ I couldn’t bring myself to tell hint, 
sir.” 

Colwyn smiled slightly. He was not unacquainted 
with Merrington’s methods of cross-examination. 

“ You could have spoken to Detective Caldew, the 
other officer engaged in the case,” he said. 

“ Young Tom Caldew ! ” exclaimed the butler, in mani- 
fest surprise. 

“ You know him then? ” 


240 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ I know him, but I cannot say I know any good of 
him,” rejoined the butler severely. “ Young Tom Cal- 
dew was born and bred in this village, and an idle young 
vagabond he was. Many a time have I dusted his jacket 
for stealing chestnuts in our park. The place was well 
rid of him, I take it, when he ran away to London and 
joined the police force. No, sir, I really couldn’t see 
myself confiding in young Tom Caldew.” 

“ And why have you confided in me now ? ” 

“ Well, sir, it was the arrest of the young woman that 
set me thinking, and caused me to wonder whether I’d 
done right in keeping this back. What I thought I 
saw that night may have been merely fancy on my part, 
but it took on an added importance in my mind when 
Miss Rath was arrested for murdering Mrs. Heredith. 
It seemed to me as though I might be doing some sort 
of injustice to her by- not telling about it, and I wouldn’t 
like to have that on my conscience after the way things 
turned out. But I thought it was too late to say anything 
after they had arrested Miss Rath and taken her away. 
Then Mr. Philip got better from his illness and went to 
London to fetch you. The same evening I heard Miss 
Heredith and Mr. Musard talking at the dinner table 
about the murder, and I gathered from what they said 
that Mr. Philip thought the detectives had made a mis- 
take in arresting Miss Rath. Then I decided to tell you 
when you arrived, but I couldn’t summon up my courage 
to do 'so until now,” concluded the butler simply. “ I 
hope I have done right, sir.” 

“ You have certainly done right in not keeping the 
story to yourself any longer,” said Colwyn. “ Before I 
leave here you had better show me the place in the woods 
where you thought you saw this man.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


241 

“ I shall be happy to do so, sir. I should like to thank 
you for listening to me. It is a weight off my mind.” 

“ I shall be going almost immediately,” continued 
Colwyn. “ I think the best plan will be for you to meet 
me in the carriage drive, near the spot. Can you man- 
age that ? ” 

“ Quite easily, sir.” 

“ Excellent. And now, as you go downstairs, I should 
be glad it you would tell Mr. Musard that I should like 
to see him in my room before I go.” 

“ Very well, sir. Afterwards you will find me wait- 
ing at the bend of the carriage drive where it winds round 
the lake.” 

Colwyn nodded his comprehension, and Tufnell left 
the room with a relieved countenance. A few moments 
later there was another knock at the door. In response 
to Colwyn’s invitation the door opened, and Musard ap- 
peared. 

“ Tufnell said you wished to see me,” he said, with an 
inquiring glance from beneath his dark brows. 

“ Yes. I should be glad if you would give me a de- 
scription of the missing necklace. It will be useful in 
tracing it.” 

“ It is not difficult to describe,” replied Musard, seat- 
ing himself on the edge of the bed. “ It consisted of a 
single row of pink pearls, none of them very large. The 
biggest is about forty grains, and the others between 
twenty and thirty. It has a diamond clasp, set in antique 
gold, which is the most valuable part of the necklace. 
Do you know anything about jewels?” 

" A little.” 

“ Then you are aware that blue and red diamonds are 
the most valuable of stones. This diamond is a blue 


24 2 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


one — not very large, but a particularly fine stone.” 

“Of course the necklace is well-known to jewel ex- 
perts ? ” 

“As well-known as any piece of jewellery in Europe. 
Some of the pearls in it are hundreds of years old. It 
would be almost impossible for the thief to dispose of the 
necklace.” 

“ It might be taken to pieces,” suggested Colwyn. 

“ In order to hide its identity ? Well, yes, but the 
selling value would be greatly reduced. The pearls have 
been strung.” 

“ What about the diamond ? Could not that be sold 
by the thief without risk of discovery?” 

“ Only by sending it to Amsterdam to get it cut into 
two or three smaller stones, so as to lessen the risk of 
detection. The Heredith blue diamond is known to many 
connoisseurs. It is cut in an unusual form — a kind of 
irregular rosette, in order to display its fire and optical 
properties to the best advantage. If it were cut it would 
lose a great deal of its value. The money value of one 
large diamond of first quality is very much greater than 
the same stone cut into'three. But it would be difficult 
to sell the diamond in its present form. The chances are 
that it would be recognized in Hatton Garden — if it 
were offered for sale there.” 

“ But if the diamond fell into the hands of somebody 
with a knowledge of precious stones he might keep it 
close for a while and then dispose of it abroad — in 
America, for instance,” returned Colwyn. “ That trick 
has been performed with better-known stones than the 
Heredith diamond. In fact, it strikes me as possible to 
sell the whole necklace that way. The disposal of the 
necklace depends largely upon who stole it — upon 
whether it ha’s fallen into experienced or inexperienced 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


243 


hands. There are jewel dealers who ask no awkward 
questions if they can get things at their own price.” 

“ Quite so,” assented Musard, casting a quick glance 
at his companion’s face. “ It would be a risk, though — 
the thief might pick the wrong man. I can give you the 
addresses of two or three men in Hatton Garden who 
should be able to tell you if the necklace has been offered 
there. They know everything that is going on in the 
trade.” 

” I shall be glad to have them.” 

Musard scribbled several names and addresses on a 
leaf of his pocket-book, tore it out, and handed it to the 
detective. 

“ There is a curious coincidence about the loss of this 
necklace,” he remarked casually, as he rose to go. “ It 
is another example of the misfortune which attaches to 
the possession of a blue diamond.” 

“Are you thinking of the Hope blue diamond? That 
certainly has a sinister history.” 

“ That is the most notorious instance. But all blue 
diamonds are unlucky. I could tell you some gruesome 
stories connected with them. The previous wearer of 
the Heredith necklace — Philip’s mother — died in giv- 
ing birth to him. Incidentally, there is a curious legend 
attached to the moat-house in the form of a curse laid 
on it by the original builder, who was burnt alive in the 
old house. He prophesied that as the house of the Here- 
diths was founded in horror it should end in horror. 
These old family curses sometimes come home to roost 
after a long lapse of time, though modern cynicism affects 
to sneer at such fancies. Of course, there may be noth- 
ing in it, but we have had more than enough horror in 
the moat-house recently, and poor Mrs. Heredith had a 
blue diamond in her room when she was murdered. But 


244 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


I must not keep you any longer, Mr. Colwyn. If there 
has been any miscarriage of justice in this terrible case 
I trust that you will be successful in bringing it to light.” 

He lingered after shaking hands, as though he would 
have liked to continue the conversation. Apparently not 
finding sufficient encouragement in the detective’s face 
to do so, he turned and left the room, and Colwyn re- 
sumed his preparations for departure. 

When they were completed he, too, went downstairs, 
carrying his bag. Miss Heredith and Phil were waiting 
to bid farewell to him. As Miss Heredith said good- 
bye, she looked into his face with the perplexed expres- 
sion of a simple soul seeking reassurance from a stronger 
mind in the deep vortex of extraordinary events into 
which she had been plunged beyond her depth. Phil 
looked white and ill, and the hand which he gave into 
the detective’s cool firm grasp was hot and feverish. 
While his aunt murmured those conventional phrases 
under which women seek to cover the realities of life 
as they bedeck corpses with flowers, Phil stood aside 
with the impatient air of one scornful of the futility of 
such things. As Miss Heredith ceased speaking he took 
a step forward, his dark eyes fixed eagerly and search- 
ingly on Colwyn. 

“ You will lose no time? ” he said. “ You will find out 
everything ? ” 

“ I have already promised you that I will continue my 
investigations,” replied Colwyn. The quiet sincerity of 
his words was the indication of a mind which despised 
the weakness of mere verbal emphasis. 

“ Lose no time. Spare no money,” said Phil rapidly. 
His words and utterance contrasted forcibly with the 
stillness and composure of the man he was addressing. 
“ Think what it means ! Let me know everything that 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


245 

happens. Send me telegrams. Follow this thing out 
night and day. I depend on you — ” 

“Phil, Phil!” remonstrated Miss Heredith. “Mr. 
Colwyn has already promised to do all he can. You 
must be patient.” 

“ Patience ! My God, don’t talk to me of patience,” 
retorted her nephew fiercely. “ I shall have no patience 
nor peace till this thing is settled.” 

Miss Heredith looked at him sadly. His breach of 
good manners in uttering an oath in her presence hurt 
her worse than a blow, but her heart sickened with the 
realization that it was but another manifestation of the 
complete change in him which had been brought about 
by his wife’s murder. Colwyn brought the scene to a 
close. 

“ Of course I shall communicate with you,” he said to 
Phil, as he took his departure. Phil accompanied him to 
his car, and stood under the portico watching him as he 
drove away. Colwyn glanced back as he crossed the 
moat-house bridge. The young man was still standing 
in the open doorway, looking after him. The next mo- 
ment the bend of the carriage way hid him from view. 

Colwyn encountered Tufnell at the next bend of the 
drive, waiting for him on the path under the trees which 
bordered the edge. The detective pulled up his car and 
stepped out. 

“ It was just off here, sir, that I thought I saw the 
figure that night,” said the butler. 

He plunged into a leafy avenue which led off the path 
at right angles, and followed it into the wood until he 
reached the mossy trunk of a great oak, which flung a 
gnarled arm horizontally across the narrow walk as 
though barring further intrusion into its domain. Tuf- 
nell stopped, and turned to the detective. 


246 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ It seemed to me as though a man was crouching just 
about here, sir,” he said in a whisper, as if he feared 
that the intruder might still be hiding there and over- 
hear his words. 

Colwyn carefully examined the spot. The moss and 
grass where he stood grew fresh underfoot, with no 
marks to suggest that they had been trodden on recently. 
But close by, behind the horizontal branch of the great 
oak, was a tangled patch of undergrowth and brambles, 
broken and pressed down in places, as though it had 
been entered by a human being. As Colwyn was looking 
at this place, his eye was attracted by a yellow speck in 
the background of green. It was a tiny fragment of 
khaki, caught on one of the bramble bushes. 


CHAPTER XIX 


Superintendent Merrington sat in his office at Scot- 
land Yard, irascible with the exertions of a trying day 
which had made heavy inroads upon his temper and pa- 
tience. He had several big cases on his hands, his time 
had been broken into by a series of visitors with griev- 
ances, and he had been called upon to adjust a vexatious 
claim of a woman attacked in the street by a police dog, 
while the animal was supposed to be on duty tracking a 
sacrilegious thief who had felled a priest in an oratory 
and bolted with the silver candlesticks from the altar. 

The woman had gone mad from the shock and had 
been placed in a public asylum, where she had imagined 
herself to be a horse, and in that guise had neighed harm- 
lessly for some years, until cured by auto-suggestion 
by a rising young brain doctor who had devoted much 
time and study to her peculiar case. Her first act of re- 
turned reason was to bring a heavy claim for damages 
against Scotland Yard, and Merrington had fought it 
out that day with an avaricious lawyer who had taken 
up the case on the promise of an equal division of the 
spoils. 

Merrington had preferred to pay rather than contest 
the suit in law, and he was exceedingly wroth in con- 
sequence. He was angry with the old woman for pre- 
suming to get cured, and angry with the brain doctor for 
curing her. He considered that the brain doctor had 
been guilty of a piece of meddlesome interference in re- 
storing the old lady to so-called sanity in a world of fools, 

247 


248 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


without achieving any object except robbery from the 
public funds by a rascally lawyer. To use Merrington’s 
own words, expressed with intense exasperation to an 
astonished subordinate, the old woman was quite all 
right as a horse, comfortable and well-fed, and had prob- 
ably got more out of life in that guise than she ever 
had as a human being, compelled to all sorts of shifts 
and contrivances and mean scrapings before her betters 
for a scanty living, with nothing but the work-house 
ahead of her. He concluded in a sort of grumbling 
epilogue that some people never knew when to leave well 
alone. 

It was in no very amiable frame of mind, therefore, 
that he received Colwyn’s card with a pencilled request 
for an immediate interview. Merrington disapproved of 
all private detectives as an unwarrantable usurpation of 
the functions of Scotland Yard, but he particularly dis- 
approved of a private detective like Colwyn, whose popu- 
lar renown was far greater than his own. But there 
were politic reasons for the extension of courtesy to him. 
The famous private detective was such a powerful rival 
that it was best to conciliate him with a little politeness, 
which cost nothing, and he had done Scotland Yard 
several good turns which at least demanded an outward 
show of gratitude. He had influence in the right quar- 
ter, too, and, altogether, was not a person to be lightly 
affronted. The consideration of these factors impelled 
Merrington to inform the waiting janitor that he would 
see Mr. Colwyn at once, and even caused him to crease 
his fat red features into a smile of welcome as he awaited 
his entrance. 

When Colwyn appeared in the doorway the big man 
he had called to see got up from his swing-chair to shake 
hands with him. When his visitor was seated Merring- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


249 


ton leaned back in his own chair and remarked, in his 
great rolling voice: 

“ What can I do for you, Mr. Colwyn?” 

“ Nothing personally. I have called to have a talk with 
you about the Heredith case.” 

The veneer of welcome disappeared from Merrington’s 
face at this opening, though a large framed photograph 
of himself on the wall behind his chair continued to smile 
down at the private detective with unwonted amiability. 

” Ah, yes, the Heredith case,” he responded. “ A 
strange affair, that. I investigated it personally. It was 
a pity you were not in it. There were points about that 
murder — distinct points. You would have enjoyed it.” 

Merrington’s professional commiseration of Colwyn’s 
ill-luck in missing an enjoyable murder was intended to 
convey a distinct rebuke to the other’s presumption in 
discussing a case in which he had not been engaged. But 
Colwyn’s next words startled Merrington out of his at- 
titude of censorious dignity. 

“ I was not in the case at first, but I was called into 
it subsequently by the husband of the murdered woman. 
He is dissatisfied with the outcome. He thinks a mis- 
take has been made in arresting the girl Hazel Rath.” 

The silence with which Merrington received this in- 
formation was an involuntary tribute to his visitor, im- 
plying, as it did, that he knew Colwyn would not have 
come to see him without weighty reason for the sup- 
port of what sounded like the repetition of a mere ex- 
pression of opinion. 

“ I was reluctant to interfere until Mr. Heredith told 
me something which suggested that one of your men was 
in danger of underestimating an important clue,” con- 
tinued Colwyn. “ That decided me. I went back with 
Mr. Heredith in my car the night before last. After 


250 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


my arrival at the moat-house I made an interesting dis- 
covery — quite by accident. I discovered that a pearl 
necklace which had been given to Mrs. Heredith by Sir 
Philip Heredith was missing from the jewel-case in 
which it had been locked. That jewel-case was in Mrs. 
Heredith’s bedroom on the night she was murdered.” 

This piece of news was so unexpected that it caught 
Merrington off his guard. 

“A jewel robbery as well as murder!” he ejaculated, 
in something like dismay. 

“ It looks like it. You will be able to form a better 
judgment when I have told you all the circumstances of 
the discovery.” 

Merrington had long ago convinced himself that the 
case he had worked up against Hazel Rath did not admit 
of the slightest possibility of doubt ; and, like all obstinate 
men, he adhered to his convictions with additional 
strength in the face of anything tending to weaken them. 
As he recovered from his surprise at the private detec- 
tive’s piece of news, he listened to his account of the 
opening of the jewel-case with the wary air of one seek- 
ing a loop-hole in an unexpected obstacle. Before 
Colwyn had finished he had found it in the belief that 
Hazel Rath, and nobody else, had stolen the missing 
jewels. 

“ This girl is a thief as well as a murderer,” was the 
manner in which he expressed his opinion when Colwyn 
had ceased speaking. “ She has stolen the necklace.” 

“ She may have done so, but it is too great an assump- 
tion to make without >p roof,” returned Colwyn. “You 
must be perfectly well aware, Mr. Merrington, that this 
belated discovery is of the utmost importance to the 
Crown case, one way or the other. If you can prove that 
Hazel Rath stole the necklace, it gives you an unassailable 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


251 


case against her. If the necklace was stolen by somebody 
else, you are confronted with a new and strange aspect 
of this murder. ,, 

“ Not to the extent of lessening the strength of the 
case against this girl,” replied Merrington doggedly. 
“ She was seen going to the staircase leading to Mrs. 
Heredith’s room just before the murder; her brooch was 
founfd upstairs in the room; and the revolver and her 
handkerchief were found concealed in her mother’s rooms. 
Add to that, her silence under accusation, and it is im- 
possible to get away from the belief that she, and nobody 
else, murdered Mrs. Heredith.” 

“ I am not attempting to controvert your theory or con- 
tradict your facts,” rejoined Colwyn coldly. “ My visit 
is to bring under your notice a fresh fact in the case 
which needs investigation. Whether that fact squares 
with your own theory or not, it is too important to be 
disregarded or overlooked. That is why I left the 
moat-house immediately I discovered it. I felt that you 
had been ignorantly misled, and that it was only right 
you should be told without delay.” 

Merrington was conscious of that evanescent feeling 
which men call gratitude. His impulse of thankfulness 
towards the man opposite him was all the keener for the 
realization that he would not have acted so generously if 
he had been in Colwyn’s place. But his gratitude was 
speedily swallowed up by the knowledge that he had been 
led astray, and his anger was mingled with the deter- 
mination to find a scapegoat. 

“ I am obliged to you for your information, although 
I do not attach quite so much importance to it as you do,” 
was his careful rejoinder. “ But I certainly blame De- 
tective Caldew for not finding it out before you did. He 
made the original inquiries at the moat-house, and he 


252 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


seems to have made them very carelessly. He said noth- 
ing to the Chief Constable of Sussex or myself, when we 
arrived, about a jewel-case, locked or open.” 

“ He didn’t know himself.” 

44 It was his duty to inquire. When he assured us, on 
the authority of Miss Heredith, that nothing was miss- 
ing, I naturally assumed that he had made the proper 
inquiries. But I thank you for letting me know, and I 
shall, of course, have investigations made. But I should 
like to know why young Heredith interfered and brought 
you into the case ? ” 

44 For one thing, he has a strong belief in Hazel Rath’s 
innocence.” 

“ Mere sentiment,” replied Merrington contemptuously. 
44 Perhaps he’s still sweet on the girl.” 

44 There is more than that in it. There’s the question 
of the revolver. Of course you are aware that he identi- 
fied the revolver with which his wife was shot as the 
property of Captain Nepcote, a guest at the moat-house 
who left on the afternoon of the day on which Mrs. 
Heredith was murdered. Heredith does not accept your 
theory of the way in which Hazel Rath is supposed to 
have obtained the revolver. He does not think that 
Nepcote left the revolver behind him at the moat-house. 
He told Caldew this, but Caldew said the ownership of 
the revolver was a matter of no consequence.” 

44 Caldew’s a fool if he said that, and I wish I’d never 
allowed him to meddle in the case,” replied Merrington 
forcibly. 44 I’ve had the police court proceedings against 
the girl put back for a week till the question of the owner- 
ship of the revolver could be settled. Now that it is 
decided I shall have Nepcote interviewed and questioned 
without delay.” 

44 Before you try to trace the missing necklace ? ” The 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 253 

faint inflection of surprise in Colwyn’s voice might have 
escaped a quicker ear than Merrington’s. 

“ Scotland Yard will trace the necklace fast enough,” 
he confidently declared. 44 I like to take things in their 
proper order. The next thing to do is to ascertain 
whether Nepcote left his revolver behind him at the moat- 
house, though I have not the least doubt that he did. 
The necklace is really a minor consideration. It merely 
provides another motive for the murder — cupidity as 
well as jealousy.” 

“ Is that the way you regard it? ” A less thick-skinned 
man than Merrington would this time have caught some- 
thing more than surprise in the other’s tone. 

“ Is there any other way of looking at it ? ” 

“ I would not like to venture an opinion in this case 
without more knowledge than I have at present,” re- 
turned Colwyn in sober accents. “ But so far as I have 
gone into it I should say that there are several things 
which seem to require more explanation. Nepcote’s own 
actions seem to call for some investigation.” 

“ You are surely not suggesting that Nepcote had any- 
thing to do with the murder or the robbery of the pearls? ” 
said Merrington in an astonished voice. “ That is quite 
impossible. He left the moat-house in the afternoon be- 
fore the murder was committed, and went over to France 
that night.” 

44 He didn’t go to France that night. He stayed in 
London, and did not return to France until the following 
day.” 

Merrington was obviously startled at this unexpected 
information. 

44 This is news to me,” he said gravely. “ Where did 
you learn it ? ” 

44 From the War Office this morning. There is no pos- 


254 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


sibility of mistake. Nepcote was in London on the night 
of the murder.” 

“ He probably has an explanation, but what you have 
just told me is an additional reason for seeing and ques- 
tioning Nepcote without delay, even if I have to send a 
man to France for the job.” 

“ It will not be necessary for you to do that. Nepcote 
returned to London two days ago — sent over on sogie 
special mission. I ascertained that fact also from my 
friend at the War Office.” 

Merrington glanced at a small clock which stood on 
the desk in front of him. 

“ I will go immediately and see him myself,” he said. 

“ I should like to accompany you.” 

“ I shall be delighted to have you,” replied Merrington 
with complete untruth. “ I have Nepcote’s address in- 
cluded in the list of guests who were at the moat-house 
at the time of the murder,” he added, opening his pocket- 
book and hastily scanning it. “ Ah, here it is — io 
Sherryman Street. I’ll send for a taxi-cab. Is there 
anything I can do for you in return for your kindness in 
bringing me this information?” 

“ I should be obliged if you would lend me a copy 
of the coroner’s depositions in the Heredith case.” 

“ With pleasure.” Merrington touched a bell, and in- 
structed the policeman who answered it to bring a type- 
script of the Heredith murder depositions and the re- 
volver which figured as an exhibit in the case. “ And 
tell somebody to call a taxi, Johnson,” he added. 

When Merrington and Colwyn emerged from the swing 
doors of the entrance a few moments later, a taxi-cab 
was waiting at the bottom of the stone steps, with a 
pockmarked driver leaning against the door of the vehicle, 
gazing moodily over the Thames Embankment. He re- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


255 


ceived Merrington’s instructions morosely, cranked his 
cab wearily, and was soon threading his way through 
the mazes of Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus with 
a contemptuous disregard for traffic regulations, due to 
his prompt recognition of the fact that he was carrying 
a high official of Scotland Yard who was above rules of 
the road regulated by mere police constables. He 
skimmed in a hazardous way along Regent Street, dipped 
into the network of narrower streets which lay between 
that haunt of the fox and the geese and Baker Street, and 
finally stopped abruptly outside a tall house which was 
one of a row in a quiet street which led into the highly 
fashionable locality of Sherryman Square. 

Sherryman Street, in which the taxi-cab had stopped, 
was an offshoot and snobbish mean relation of Sherry- 
man Square, which housed a duke, an ex-prime minister, 
and a fugitive king, to say nothing of several lesser no- 
tabilities, such as a High Court Judge or two, several 
baronets, and a war-time profiteer whose brand-new peer- 
age had descended in the last heavy downpour of kingly 
honours. Because of their proximity to these great ones 
of the earth, the inhabitants of Sherryman Street as- 
sumed all the airs of exclusiveness which distinguished 
the residents of the superior neighbourhood, and parasit- 
ical house agents spoke of it with great respect because 
one end opened into the rarefied atmosphere of the 
Square. It was true that the other end was close to a 
slum, and there was a mews across the way, but these 
were small drawbacks compared to the social advantages. 

Sherryman Street was full of gaunt, narrow houses, 
with prim fronts and narrow railed windows, let in seg- 
ments, fiats, and bachelor apartments. Number 10 was 
as like its fellows as one drab soul resembles another. 
Superintendent Herrington’s ring at the doorbell brought 


256 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


forth an elderly woman with an expressionless face sur- 
mounted by a frilled white cap. She informed them in 
an expressionless voice that Captain Nepcote’s apart- 
ments were on the second floor. Having said this much, 
she disappeared into a small lobby room off the entrance 
hall, leaving them free to enter. 

A knock at the entrance door of the second-floor flat 
brought forth a manservant whose smart bearing and 
precision of manner suggested military training. He 
cautiously informed Superintendent Merrington, in reply 
to his question, that he was not sure if Captain Nepcote 
was at home, but he would go and see. 

“ Who shall I say, sir?” he asked, in unconscious con- 
tradiction of his statement. 

Merrington stopped further parleying by impatiently 
pushing past the servant into the room. 

41 Go and tell your master I want to see him,” he 
said, seating himself. 

The servant looked angrily at the burly figure on the 
slender chair, and then, as though realizing his inability 
to eject him, he left the room without further speech. 

The room they had entered was furnished in a style 
which suggested that its occupier had sufficient means or 
credit to gratify his tastes, which obviously soared no 
higher than racehorses and chorus girls. Pictures of the 
former adorned the wall in oak; the latter smirked at 
the beholder from silver frames on small tables. The 
room was handsomely furnished in a masculine way, al- 
though there was the suggestion of a feminine touch in 
the vases on the mantelpiece and some clusters of flowers 
in a bowl. 

The door opened to admit a young man, who advanced 
towards his visitors with a questioning glance. His ap- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


257 


pearance, though military, was far from suggesting the 
sordid warfare of the trenches. He was well-groomed 
and handsome, and wore his spotless uniform with that 
touch of distinction which khaki lends to some men. 

“ Good afternoon,” he said, and waited for them to 
announce the object of their visit. 

“Are you Captain Nepcote?” Merrington asked. 

“ My name is Nepcote,” was the response. “ May I 
ask who you are?” His glance included both his visit- 
ors. 

“ My name is Merrington,” responded that officer, an- 
swering for himself. “ Superintendent Merrington, of 
Scotland Yard. This is Mr. Colwyn, a private detec- 
tive,” he added, as an afterthought. “ I wish to ask you 
a few questions. I understand you were staying at the 
residence of Sir Philip Heredith when young Mrs. Here- 
dith was murdered.” 

“ That is not quite accurate,” replied the young man. 
“ I left the moat-house on the afternoon of the day that 
the murder was committed, and returned to London. 
What is it you wish to ask me? I am afraid I cannot 
enlighten you about the crime in any way, for I know 
nothing whatever about it. It came as a great shock to 
me when I heard of it.” 

“Is this your revolver?” said Merrington, producing 
the weapon and laying it on the table. 

“ Why, yes, it is,” said the young man, picking it up 
and looking at it in unmistakable surprise. “ Where did 
you get it ? ” 

“ Where did you have it last ? ” was Merrington’s 
cautious rejoinder. 

“ Let me think,” returned Nepcote thoughtfully. “ Oh, 
I remember. The last time I saw it was at the moat- 


258 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


house on the day before my departure. We were using 
it for a little target practice in the gun-room downstairs.” 

“ And what did you do with it afterwards ? ” 

“ That I cannot tell you,” responded Nepcote. “ I 
have no recollection of seeing it since. I have never 
thought about it.” 

“ Nor missed it? ” 

“ No. It is no use to me — it is not an Army revolver. 
But it seems to me that I must have left it in the moat- 
house gun-room after the target shooting. After we fin- 
ished shooting some of us had a game of bagatelle on a 
table in the gun-room. I must have put the revolver 
down and forgotten all about it afterward. I have no 
recollection of taking it upstairs, and I have certainly 
never seen it since. Was it found in the gun-room?” 

“ It was found at the moat-house, at any rate. It was 
the weapon with which Mrs. Heredith was killed.” 

14 What ! ” His exclamation rang out in horror and 
incredulity. “ Why, it is impossible. The thing is a 
mere toy.” 

“ A pretty dangerous toy — as it turned out,” was the 
grim comment of Merrington. 

44 It seems incredible to me,” persisted the young man. 
“ It’s very old, and you have to be very strong with the 
finger and thumb to make it revolve. And the cartridges 
are very small ; only seven millimetres — about a quarter 
of an inch. I've had the old thing for years, but I never 
regarded it as a real fire-arm. I’d never have let the 
girls use it in the gun-room if I’d thought it was a dan- 
gerous weapon. Perhaps there is some mistake.” 

44 There is no mistake,” replied Merrington. 44 Mrs. 
Heredith was killed with that revolver, and no other. 
We were unable to establish the identity of the weapon 
until a day or two ago, and that is one of my reasons 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


259 


for calling on you to-day — to make quite sure of the 
identity and see if you could tell me where you left it.” 

“ I have no doubt now that I must have left it behind 
me at the moat-house,” responded Nepcote. “ I was re- 
called to France and went away in a hurry. God for- 
give me for my carelessness. To think that it resulted 
in this terrible murder ! ” His face had gone suddenly 
white. 

“Did you return to France that night?” asked Mer- 
rington carelessly. 

“ As a matter of fact, I did not. When I returned to 
London from Sussex I found another telegram here from 
the War Office extending my leave until the following 
day. I returned to France the next afternoon.” 

“ Thank you, Captain Nepcote.” Merrington, as he 
rose to go, held out his hand. It was evident that the 
statement about the telegram had cleared his mind of any 
suspicions he may have felt about the young man. As 
Nepcote shook hands he added : “ You had better hold 
yourself in readiness to attend the police court inquiry, 
which will be held a week from to-day. I will send you 
a proper notification of time and place. All we need from 
you is the formal identification of the revolver.” 

“ Is it essential that I should attend ? ” asked the young 
man anxiously. “ I’d rather not be mixed up in the case 
at all, you know. Besides, I may have to return to 
France.” 

“ Perhaps we shall be able to dispense with your evi- 
dence now that we have the facts,” replied Merrington, 
after a moment’s consideration. “ I will see what can be 
done, and let you know. You had better give me your 
address in France, in case you have left England. It is 
necessary for me to know that, because the case has to 
some extent taken a new turn by the discovery that rob- 


26 o 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


bery as well as murder has been committed. A valuable 
necklace belonging to the murdered woman is missing.” 

Captain Nepcote had taken out his pocket-book while 
Merrington was speaking, in order to extract a card. 
As the other uttered the last sentence, the pocket-book 
half slipped from his fingers, and several other cards 
fluttered onto the table. Nepcote picked them up hastily, 
but not before Colwyn’s quick glance had taken in their 
contents. It seemed to him something more than a coin- 
cidence that the name and address displayed in neat black 
lettering on one of the cards should be identical with one 
of the Hatton Garden addresses given him by Musard 
at the moat-house the previous day. 


CHAPTER XX 


Colwyn spent a couple of hours that night reading the 
depositions he had obtained from Merrington, and next 
morning he studied them afresh with a concentration 
which the incessant hum of London traffic outside was 
powerless to disturb. He was well aware that a report 
was a poor substitute for original impressions, but in the 
typewritten document before him lay the facts of the 
Heredith case so far as they were known. It was a clear 
and colourless transcription of the narrative of the wit- 
nesses, set down with a painstaking regard for the value 
of departmental records, and chiefly valuable to Colwyn 
because it contained the expert evidence which sometimes 
reveals, with the pitiless accuracy of science, what hu- 
man nature endeavours to hide. In the balance of the 
scales of justice it is the ascertained truth which weighs 
heavier than faith, reason, or revealed religion. 

When he had finished his study of the depositions, he 
sat awhile pondering over his own discoveries since he 
had been called into the case by the husband of the dead 
woman. These discoveries, due apparently to chance, in- 
vested the murder with a complexity which stimulated 
all the penetrative and analytical powers of his fine mind, 
because they brought with them the realization that he 
was face to face with one of those rare crimes where the 
solution has to be unravelled from a tangle of false cir- 
cumstances, which, by their seeming plausibility, make 
the task of reaching the truth one of peculiar difficulty. 
As Colwyn sat motionless, with his chin resting on his 
hand, brooding over the sullen secretive surface of this 
261 


262 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


dark mystery, the feeling grew upon him that the murder 
had been preconceived with the utmost cunning and cau- 
tion, and that the facts so far brought to light, including 
his own discoveries, did not penetrate to the real design. 

The one conviction in his mind at that moment was 
that the man he and Merrington had interviewed on the 
previous afternoon had some connection with the mystery, 
and that an investigation of Nepcote’s actions was the 
first step towards the solution of the murder. Colwyn 
based that belief on the apparently detached facts of the 
revolver, the patch of khaki he had found in the woods 
near the moat-house, and the accident which disclosed 
that Nepcote was carrying the address of a Hatton Gar- 
den jeweller in his pocket-book. These things, taken 
apart, had perhaps but slight significance, but, considered 
as links in a chain of events which started in Philip Here- 
dith’s statement that he had first met his wife at a friend’s 
house where Nepcote was also a guest, and finishing with 
the knowledge that Nepcote had not returned to France 
on the night of the murder, they assumed a significance 
which at least warranted the closest investigation. 

Colwyn was not affected by the fact that Superintend- 
ent Merrington looked at the case from an entirely dif- 
ferent point of view. He did not want the help of Scot- 
land Yard in solving the crime. He had too much con- 
tempt for the official mind in any capacity to think that 
assistance from such a source could be of value to him. 
He always preferred to work alone and unaided. It was 
the Anglo-Saxon instinct of fair play which had prompted 
him to tell Merrington about the missing necklace, so that 
there might be no unfair advantage between them. Mer- 
rington had received the information with the imperviable 
dogmatism of the official mind, strong in the belief in its 
own infallibility, resentful of advice or suggestion as an 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


263 


attempt to weaken its dignity. It seemed to Colwyn that 
not only had Merrington’s ruffled dignity led his judg- 
ment astray in an attempt to fit the discovery of the miss- 
ing necklace into his own theory of the case, but it had 
caused him to commit a grave mistake in putting Nepcote 
on his guard at a moment when the utmost circumspec- 
tion of investigation was necessary. 

To Colwyn, at all events, the discovery of the missing 
necklace was of the utmost importance because it sub- 
stituted another motive for the murder, and a motive 
which carried with it the additional complication that 
the thief had some motive in trying to keep its disap- 
pearance secret as long as possible by locking the jewel- 
case after the jewels had been abstracted. If Hazel Rath 
had not stolen the necklace, the whole of the facts took 
on new values. It was quite true that the mystery of 
Hazel Rath’s actions on the night of the murder, her sub- 
sequent silence after the recovery of the brooch and the 
* handkerchief and the revolver in her mother’s rooms, re- 
mained as suspicious as before, but the changed motive 
caused these points to assume a different complexion, even 
to the extent of suggesting that she might be a lesser par- 
ticipant in the crime, perhaps keeping silence in order to 
shield the greater criminal. 

Merrington, stiff-necked in his officialism, had been 
unable to see this changed aspect of the case, and, strong 
in his presumption of the girl’s guilt, had acted with 
impulsive indiscretion in going to see Nepcote before 
attempting to trace the missing necklace. 

Colwyn’s reflections were interrupted by the appear- 
ance of the porter from downstairs to announce a visitor. 
The visitor, partly obscured behind the burly frame of 
the porter in the doorway, was Detective Caldew, of Scot- 
land Yard. Colwyn had met him at various times, and 


264 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


invited him to enter. As Colwyn had once said, his feel- 
ings towards all the members of the regular detective 
force were invariably friendly; it was not their fault, 
but the fault of human nature, that they were sometimes 
jealous of him. So he made Caldew welcome, and offered 
him a cigar. 

Caldew accepted the cigar and the proffered seat 
a little nervously. His was the type of temperament 
which is overawed in the presence of a more success- 
ful practitioner in the same line of business. He had 
long envied Colwyn his dazzling successes, but at the 
same time he had sufficient intelligence to understand 
that many of those successes stood in a class which he 
could never hope to attain. 

At the present moment, Caldew’s feelings were divided 
between resentment at Colwyn’s action in conveying in- 
formation to Scotland Yard which had earned him a rep- 
rimand from Superintendent Merrington, and the anx- 
ious desire to ascertain what the famous private detective 
thought of the Heredith case. 

“ Merrington has sent me round for the copy of the 
depositions he lent you yesterday.” It was thus he an- 
nounced the object of his visit. “ Have you finished with 
it?” 

It was apparent from this statement that Superintend- 
ent Merrington’s gratitude for information received 
might now be considered as past history. Colwyn, re- 
flecting that it had lasted as long as that feeling usually 
does, congratulated himself on his forethought in having 
made a copy of the report. He handed the copy before 
him to his visitor. 

“ I am obliged for the loan of it,” he said. “ It makes 
interesting reading. You’re own share in the original 
investigations has some excellent touches, if you’ll per- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 265 

mit me to say so. That trap for the owner of the brooch 
was a neat idea.” 

Caldew’s resentment waned under this compliment to 
his professional skill. 

“ The trick would have worked, too, if I hadn’t been 
called downstairs,” he said. “ The girl was quick enough 
to get into the room while I was out of it. Not that it 
mattered much, as things turned out, but it is a strange 
thing about this necklace, isn’t it ? ” 

“Very. Has Merrington told you all about it?” 

“ Yes, and he gave me a rare wigging for not dis- 
covering the loss. Between ourselves, I do not think 
that I was treated quite fairly about it. Miss Heredith 
never said a word to me about a jewel-case being in the 
room. She took it downstairs before I arrived, and never 
mentioned it when I asked her if anything had been 
stolen. If she had told me I should have had the case 
opened. But that didn’t weigh with Merrington. He’s 
beastly unfair, and never loses a chance to put the 
blame on to somebody else when anything goes wrong.” 

“ I am sorry if you got into trouble through my action 
in informing him,” said Colwyn. “ But of course you 
must realize that a discovery of such importance could 
not be kept secret.” 

“ That’s quite true,” replied Caldew, in a softened 
voice. “ Fortunately, it does not affect the issue, one 
way or another. Mr. Heredith believes that Hazel Rath 
is innocent, and I suppose that is why he has called you 
into the case. But she is guilty, right enough. I tried 
to make that clear to Mr. Heredith, but he appears to be 
a man of fixed ideas. The question is, what has become 
of the necklace? My own impression is that she has 
hidden it somewhere. She had no opportunity to dispose 
of it before she was arrested.” 


266 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ That means that you think she has stolen it.” 

“ Why, of course — ” Caldew’s confident tone died 
away at the expression of his companion’s face. “ Don’t 
you ? ” 

“ I do not.” 

“ Why not ? ” 

“ For one thing, the jewel-case was locked. How did 
the girl know where the key was kept ? ” 

“ She might have got the knowledge from her mother. 
Mrs. Rath, as the housekeeper, would probably know all 
about the keys of the household.” 

“ Of the ordinary keys — yes. But that knowledge 
was hardly likely to extend to Mrs. Heredith’s private 
keys, unless Miss Heredith told her. Even if Hazel Rath 
did know where the key was kept, it is difficult to believe 
that she searched for it after committing the murder, 
and then restored it to the drawer where it was kept. 
That argues too much cold-blooded deliberation even in a 
murderer, and more especially when the murderer is 
supposed to be a young girl.” 

“ I am not so sure of that,” responded Caldew, with 
a shake of the head. “ Murder is a cold-blooded crime.” 

“ On the contrary, murders are almost invariably com- 
mitted under the influence of the strongest excitement, 
even when the incentive is gain, and the murder has been 
deeply premeditated. That is a remarkable truth in the 
psychology of murder. But the important fact about 
the theft of the necklace is that even if Hazel Rath knew 
where the key of the jewel-case was kept she had not time 
to obtain it from the drawer on the other side of the bed, 
steal the necklace, restore the key to its place, and escape 
from the room before the guests from downstairs en- 
tered the bedroom. If Hazel Rath was indeed the mur- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 267 

deress, time was of paramount importance to her. She 
must have realized that the scream of her victim would 
alarm the household downstairs, and that some of the 
men must have started upstairs before the subsequent 
shot was fired.” 

Caldew was silent for a space, cogitating over these 
points with a troubled look which contrasted with 
his previous confident expressions of opinion about the 
case. His inward perturbation was made manifest in the 
question : 

“ Do you also share Mr. Heredith’s view that Hazel 
Rath is innocent ? ” 

“ I cannot say. The facts against her are very 
strong.” 

“Of course they are strong!” exclaimed Caldew 
eagerly, as though clutching this guarded expression of 
opinion as a buoy for his own sinking conviction. “ They 
are so strong that it is quite certain she committed the 
murder.” 

Colwyn remained silent. A statement which was 
merely an expression of opinion did not call for words. 

Caldew, always impressionable, became uneasy under 
his companion’s silence, and that uneasiness was tinctured 
in his mind with such a dread of the possibility of mis- 
take that it flowed forth in impulsive words: 

“ I wish you would tell me what you really think of 
the case, Mr. Colwyn. I have been waiting for years 
for the chance of handling a big murder like this, and 
now that it has come my way I should like to pull it off. 
It means a lot to me,” he added simply. 

Colwyn reflected that he had already given away more 
information about the Heredith case than his judgment 
approved or his conscience dictated. But his kindly na- 


268 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


ture prompted him to help the anxious young man seated 
in front of him, who had so much more than he to gain 
by success. 

“ I think there is more in this case than you and Mer- 
rington have yet brought to light,” he said. 

“ I suppose there is, if it is proved that Hazel Rath 
did not steal the necklace. But have you found out any- 
thing else besides the loss of the necklace ? ” 

Colwyn did not directly reply. He was glancing over 
the depositions again. 

44 There are one or two curious points here,” he re- 
marked, as he turned over the leaves. 44 In the first 
place, the ammunition expert who was called at the in- 
quest to give evidence about the bullet extracted from 
the body testified that in weight and in length it corre- 
sponded with the seven millimetre bullet made for a 
pinfire revolver. The bullet had undoubtedly been fired 
from the revolver which you found in Mrs. Rath’s rooms. 
Bullets for English revolvers are not graded in milli- 
metres, but there appears to be sufficient demand for this 
size to cause British firms to manufacture them. The 
nearest size in central-fire cartridge to seven millimetres 
is called the 300, which is .3 of an inch. Seven milli- 
metres is .276 of an inch. The point to which I want 
to draw your attention is the extreme slightness and 
smallness of the revolver with which Mrs. Heredith was 
killed. As Captain Nepcote told Merrington yesterday, 
it is little more than a toy.” 

“ That struck me as soon as I saw it,” said Caldew. 
44 But I do not see what bearing the fact has on the case, 
one way or another.” 

“ Nevertheless, it is a point not without importance, 
when it is considered in conjunction with the other cir- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


269 


cumstances of the case. The evidence of the Government 
pathologist is also of interest. After stating the cause 
of death to be heart failure due to haemorrhage consequent 
upon the passage of the bullet through the lung, he men- 
tions that there was a large scorched hole through the 
rest-gown and undergarment which Mrs. Heredith was 
wearing at the time she was murdered.” 

“ I noticed that when I was examining the body.” 

“ Was the dress-stuff smouldering when you saw the 
body?” 

44 No ; but there was a smell of a burning fabric in the 
room.” 

44 The Government pathologist says that the burnt hole 
was nearly two inches across, but he also states that the 
punctured wound made by the bullet was about the size 
of a threepenny piece. The disparity suggests two facts. 
In the first place, the shot must have been fired at very 
close range — very close indeed, considering the small- 
ness of the revolver and the largeness of the burnt hole. 
In the next place, somebody must have extinguished the 
burning fabric before you arrived, otherwise it would 
have smouldered in an ever-widening ring until the whole 
of the dead woman’s garments were destroyed.” 

44 Mrs. Heredith may have extinguished it herself in 
her dying moments,” said Caldew, who had been follow- 
ing his companion’s deductions with the closest atten- 
tion. 

44 That is unlikely, in view of the nature of her in- 
juries. The bullet, after traversing the left lung, lodged 
in the spinal column. After such a wound Mrs. Here- 
dith was not likely to be conscious of her actions.” 

44 It may have been extinguished by Musard, who tried 
to stop the flow of blood while Mrs. Heredith was dying.” 


270 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ He would have mentioned it to you. It is my in- 
tention to ask him, but my own opinion is that we are 
faced with a different explanation.” 

“ What is that? ” 

“ The presence of another person in the room.” 

“ Somebody who escaped through the window ! ” ex- 
claimed Caldew, placing his own interpretation on the de- 
duction. “ Do you suspect anybody ? ” 

“ Not exactly. But I intend to investigate Captain 
Nepcote’s actions on the night of the murder.” 

Caldew, who lacked some of the information possessed 
by his companion, found this jump too great for his mind 
to follow. 

‘‘For what purpose?” he asked. “ Nepcote returned 
to France before the murder was committed.” 

“ He did not. He stayed in London that night, and 
did not return to France until the following day. He 
explained that yesterday by stating that when he reached 
London after leaving the moat-house he found another 
telegram from the War Office extending his leave for 
twenty-four hours.” 

“ Merrington said nothing of this to me. All he told 
me was that you and he had seen Nepcote, who identified 
the revolver as his property, and said that he had left 
it behind at the moat-house by accident.” 

“ Merrington is a man of fixed ideas, to use your 
phrase. He insisted on trying to fit in the loss of the 
necklace with his own theory of Hazel Rath’s guilt. It 
was his obstinacy which led him to commit the folly of 
going to see Captain Nepcote before endeavouring to 
trace the missing necklace. It is only fair to Nepcote to 
add that he volunteered the information that he did not 
return to France on the night of the murder.” 

“ That does not seem like the action of a man with 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


271 


anything to hide,” commented Caldew thoughtfully. 

“ Unless he was facing a dangerous situation. In that 
case, frankness would be his best course to remove 
Merrington’s suspicions. The fact that the murder was 
committed with his revolver is in itself a suspicious cir- 
cumstance, in spite of the apparently plausible explana- 
tion. I have realized that all along. I had also pre- 
viously acquainted Merrington with the fact that Nepcote 
did not return to France on the night of the murder, as 
was supposed. Merrington led up to that point skil- 
fully enough, but it struck me that Nepcote saw the 
trap, and took the boldest course. It gave him time, at 
all events.” 

“Time for what?” 

“ Time to profit by Merrington’s folly in putting him 
on his guard. Time to permit him to make his escape, 
if he is actually implicated in the crime.” 

“ Surely you are reading too much into this,” ex- 
claimed Caldew in a protesting voice. “ Nepcote’s story 
seems to me quite consistent with what we know of his 
movements. Miss Heredith, when giving us the names 
of the guests who had been staying at the moat-house, 
mentioned that Captain Nepcote had been recalled to 
France on the afternoon of the murder by a telegram 
from the War Office. Nepcote tells you that when he 
reached London he found another telegram awaiting him 
extending his leave. Surely that is consistent?” 

“ Is it consistent that the two telegrams were sent to 
different addresses? They would have been either both 
sent to the moat-house, or both sent to his London flat — 
that is, if they were sent by the War Office. Only a rel- 
ative or a personal friend would take the trouble to send 
to different addresses. There lies the weak point of 
Nepcote’s statement.” 


272 THE HAND IN THE DARK 

“ By Jove, there is a point in that,” said Caldew, in a 
startled tone. “ But these are facts which can be ascer- 
tained,” he added, as though seeking to reassure himself. 

“ They can be ascertained too late. I have already 
set inquiries on foot, but it takes some time to gain any 
information about official telegrams. Nepcote has plenty 
of time to take advantage of Merrington’s blunder, if 
there is any occasion for him to do so. No matter what 
his explanation is, the fact remains that he was in Eng- 
land, and not in France, on the night the murder was 
committed, and I propose to find out how he spent the 
time. But it is of the first importance to find out what 
has become of the missing necklace, which is the really 
important clue. Is Scotland Yard making any investiga- 
tions about it ? ” 

“Yes. Merrington has put me on to that because I 
let you score the point over him of discovering that it 
was missing. I am sure that he hopes I will fall down 
over the job of tracing it. I shouldn’t be surprised if I 
did, too. It’s no easy thing to get on the track of missing 
jewellery, especially if it hks been hidden. I have not 
even got a description of the necklace to help me.” 

“ I can give you a description, and perhaps help you 
in the work of tracing it.” 

“ Can you ? That’s awfully good of you.” Caldew’s 
face showed that he meant his words. “ Have you any 
idea where it is? ” 

“ I have at least something to guide me in commencing 
the search — something, which, curiously enough, I owe 
to Merrington’s blunder in visiting Nepcote before he 
looked for the necklace. We will go across to Hatton 
Garden, and I will put my idea to the test.” 


CHAPTER XXI 


On reaching the street, they crossed Ludgate Circus, 
and directed their steps towards Hatton Garden by way 
of St. Bride Street. 

A few minutes later, they emerged in that portion of 
Holborn which is graced by the mounted statue of a dead 
German prince acknowledging his lifelong obligations to 
British hospitality by raising his plumed hat to the Lon- 
don City & Midland Bank on the Viaduct corner. Hat- 
ton Garden, as every Londoner knows, begins on the 
other side of this improving spectacle — a short broad 
street which disdains to indicate by external opulence the 
wealth hidden within its walls, though, to an eye practised 
in London ways, there is a comforting suggestion of pros- 
perity in its wide flagged pavements, comfortable brick 
buildings, and Jewish names which appear in gilt letter- 
ing on plateglass windows. 

Colwyn walked quickly along, glancing at the displayed 
names. He had almost reached the Clerkenwell end of 
the Garden when his eye was caught by the name of 
“ Austin Wendover, Dealer in Oriental Stones/’ gleam- 
ing in white letters on the blackboard indicator of a set 
of offices hived in a building on the corner of a side 
street. It was the name of the man he was searching 
for. He turned into the passage, and mounted the stairs. 
Caldew followed him. 

On the landing of the first floor another and smaller 
board gave the names of those tenants whose offices were 
at the back of the building. Mr. Wendover’s was 

m 


274 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


amongst them, and a pointing hand opposite it revealed 
that he conducted his business at the end of a long pas- 
sage with a bend in the middle. When this passage was 
traversed, Mr. Wendover’s name was once more seen, 
this time on a door, with a notice underneath inviting the 
visitor to enter without knocking. 

Within, a young Jew with a sensual face was busily 
writing at a desk in the corner, with his back to the door. 
He ceased and turned around at the sound of the open- 
ing door, and, thrusting his fountain pen behind an ear 
already burdened with a cigarette, waited to be informed 
what the visitors wanted. 

“Is Mr. Wendover in?” Colwyn inquired. 

“Yes, he is. What name, please?” The young Jew 
scrambled down from his stool preparatory to carrying 
a message. 

In answer Colwyn tendered Musard’s card of intro- 
duction. The young Jew scanned it, shot an appraising 
glance at the two detectives, and vanished into an inner 
room. He reappeared swiftly in the doorway, and beck- 
oned them to enter. 

The inner room was furnished with leather chairs, a 
good carpet, and a large walnut table. Mining maps 
and framed photographs of famous diamonds hung on the 
walls, but there was nothing about the man seated at the 
table to suggest association with precious stones except 
the gleam of his small grey eyes, which were as hard and 
glistening as the specimen gems in the showcase at his 
elbow. His face was long, thin and yellow, of a bilious 
appearance. His gaunt frame was clothed in black, and 
his low white collar ended in front in two linen tags, 
fastened with a penny bone stud instead of the diamond 
which might have been expected. This device, besides 
dispensing with a necktie, revealed the base of a long 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


275 


scraggy neck, with a tuft of grey hair pushing its way 
up from below and falling over the interstice of the 
collar, matching a similar tuft which dangled pendulously 
.from the diamond merchant’s nether lip. Altogether, as 
Mr. Austin Wendover sat at his table with his long yellow 
hands clasped in front of him waiting for his visitors to 
announce their business, he looked not unlike a Methodist 
pastor about to say grace, or a Garden City apostle of 
culture for the masses preparing to receive a vote of 
thanks for a lecture on English prose at a workers’ mu- 
tual improvement society. Even his name suggested, to 
the serious mind, the compiler of an anthology of British 
war poets or the writer of a book of Nature studies, 
rather than the material wealth, female folly, late sup- 
pers, greenrooms, frivolity and immorality brought before 
a vivid imagination by the mere mention of the word 
diamonds. 

“ My name is Colwyn ; my friend is Detective Caldew, 
of Scotland Yard,” said Colwyn, in response to Mr. 
Wendover’s glance of interrogation. “We are in search 
of a little information, which we trust you will give us.” 

“ That depends upon what ye want to know.” This 
reply, delivered in an abrupt and uncouth manner, sug- 
gested that the diamond merchant’s disposition was any- 
thing but a cut and polished one. 

“ Quite so. You have heard of the Heredith murder, 
I presume.” 

The diamond merchant nodded his head without speak- 
ing, and waited to hear more. 

“ The Heredith necklace of pink pearls was stolen from 
Mrs. Heredith’s room on the night that she was mur- 
dered, and we are endeavouring to trace it.” 

“ And what has that got to do with me? ” 

•• I have reason to think that the necklace may have 


276 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


been offered or sold in Hatton Garden. It may have been 
submitted to you.” 

“ What d’ye mean by coming to me with such a ques- 
tion? What does Mr. Musard mean by sending ye here? 
Does he think I’ve turned receiver of stolen property at 
my time of life? I’m surprised at him.” 

“ My dear Mr. Wendover, Mr. Musard had no such 
thought in his mind. We simply come to you for infor- 
mation. Mr. Musard gave me your address as a reputa- 
ble dealer of stones who would be likely to know if this 
necklace had been offered for sale in Hatton Garden.” 

44 Well, it has not been offered to me. I’ve handled no 
pearls for twelve months.” 

“ Would you know the Heredith necklace if it were 
offered to you ? ” 

“ I would not, and I’ve already told ye it was not of- 
fered to me.” 

Colwyn was nonplussed and disappointed, but the recol- 
lection of Nepcote’s furtive glance and hasty conceal- 
ment of the diamond merchant’s card on the previous 
night prompted him to a further effort. 

44 It is possible the necklace may have been broken up 
and the stones offered separately,” he said. “ The clasp 
contained a large and valuable blue diamond.” 

“ I tell ye I know nothing about it. I very rarely buy 
from private persons. It’s not my way of doing busi- 
ness.” 

44 We have reason to suspect that the necklace was of- 
fered for sale by a young military officer, tall and good 
looking, with blue eyes and brown hair, slightly tinged 
with grey at the temples.” 

44 That description would apply to thousands of young 
officers. They’re a harum-scarum lot, and dissipation 
soon turns a man’s hair grey. I have had some of them 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


277 


here, trying to sell family jewels for money to throw 
away on painted women. There was one who called 
some days ago in a half-intoxicated condition. He 
clapped me on v the back as impudent as you please, and 
calling me a thing — a dear old thing, which is one of 
their slang phrases — asked me what he could screw out 
of me for a good diamond. I sent him and his diamond 
off with a flea in the ear.” Mr. Wendo/er’s gummy lips 
curved in a grim smile at the recollection. 

“ Can you describe him more particularly ? ” asked 
Colwyn, with sudden interest. 

“ I paid no particular attention to him, and I wouldn’t 
know him again if he were to walk in the door. It was 
almost dark when he came, and my eyes are not young. 
But he was not the man ye’re after. It was days before 
the murder. 

“ Did he give you his name? ” 

“ He did not, and I wouldn’t tell ye if he did. What’s 
it to do with the object of your visit? Ye’re a persistent 
sort of young fellow, but I’m not going to let ye hold a 
general fishing inquiry into my business. There are two 
kinds of foolish folk in this world. Those who babble 
of their affairs to their womenfolk, and those who babble 
of them to strangers. I have no womenfolk, thank 
God ! so I cannot talk to the futile creatures.” 

“ Then I shall not ask you to break the other half of 
your maxim on my account,” said Colwyn, rising with a 
smile. 

“ It would be no good if ye did,” responded Mr. Wend- 
over, with a reciprocatory grin which displayed two yel- 
low fangs like the teeth of a walrus. “ My business 
conscience is already pricking me for having said so 
much. He that holds his own counsel gives away noth- 
ing — except that he holds his counsel. Ye might do 


278 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


worse than lay that to your heart, Mr. Colwyn, in your 
walk through life. There’s fifty years’ experience be- 
hind it. Good-bye to ye, Mr. Colwyn, and ye, young 
man. I wish ye both luck in your search, but my ad- 
vice is, try the pawn-shops.” At the pressure of his 
thumb on the table the young Jew appeared from the 
next room, as if summoned by a magic wand, to let the 
visitors out. 

“ That’s a queer old bird,” said Caldew, as they walked 
away. “ Do you think he has told us the truth ? ” 

Colwyn did not reply. He was thinking rapidly, and 
wondering whether by any possibility he had made a mis- 
take. But once more there flashed into his mind, like 
an image projected on a screen, the little scene which 
he alone had witnessed at the flat on the previous evening 
— the fluttering cards, the quick, unconscious gesture of 
concealment, and the startled glance which so plainly 
reflected the dread of discovery. No ! there was no mis- 
take there, but the explanation lay deeper. 

They had reached the angle of the narrow passage 
which led to the front outlet of the offices. A small win- 
dow was fixed at the dark turn of the long dark corridor 
to admit light. Colwyn chanced to glance through this 
window as he reached it, and his quick eye took in the fig- 
ure of a man standing motionless in a narrow alley of the 
side street below. He was almost concealed behind an 
archway, but it was apparent to the detective that he was 
watching the corner building. As Colywn looked at him 
he slightly changed his position and his face came into 
view. With a quick imperative gesture to his compan- 
ion, Colwyn ran swiftly along the remainder of the corri- 
dor and down the flight of stairs into Hatton Garden. 

Caldew followed more slowly, puzzled by the other’s 
strange action. When he reached the doorway Colwyn 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


279 

was nowhere to be seen, so he waited in the entrance. 
After the lapse of a few minutes he saw Colwyn return- 
ing from the direction of Clerkenwell. 

“ He has got away/’ he said, as he reached Caldew. 
His voice was a little breathless, as though with running. 

“He? Who ? ” 

Colwyn drew him into the empty entrance hall before 
he answered : 

“ Nepcote. He was watching outside. I saw him 
through the upstairs window. He either followed us here 
or has been waiting to see if we came. I should have 
foreseen this. ,, 

A flicker of unusual agitation on Colwyn’s calm face 
increased Caldew’s mental confusion. 

“ I don’t understand,” he stammered. “ He — Nepcote 
— why should he be watching us ? ” 

“ Because he penetrated the truth last night. He knew 
he was in danger.” 

“ But why should he follow us here? ” 

“ He accidentally dropped some cards from his pocket- 
book when giving Merrington an address at his flat last 
night, and one of them was Wendover’s business card. 
Merrington did not see it — it would have conveyed noth- 
ing to him if he had — but I did. Nepcote knew that I 
saw it, and must have realized that I suspected him. He 
has been watching my rooms and followed us here, or he 
has been hanging around this place to see if I called on 
Wendover.” 

“ Even now I do not see the connection. If Wendover 
told us the truth, Nepcote has not been to him with the 
necklace. Then what did it matter to Nepcote whether 
you came here or not?” 

“ Nepcote may have been the man who offered the 
diamond to Wendover.” 


28 o 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


14 That is impossible. Wendover says that man called 
some days before the murder.” 

“ Still, it may have been Nepcote.” 

“ That goes beyond me,” said Caldew, with a puzzled 
look. “What are you implying?” 

“ Nothing at present. Every step in this case con- 
vinces me that we are faced with a very deep mystery. 
It isn’t worth while to hazard a guess, because guessing 
is always unsatisfactory.” 

“ Perhaps we had better try and get a little more out of 
Wendover,” said Caldew. 

“ That would be merely waste of time. He has not got 
the necklace, and he is unable to describe the man who 
offered him the diamond. I believe now that it was 
Nepcote, but that doesn’t matter, one way or another. It 
is far more important to know that he came here to-day to 
watch for us. That implies that he had reason to fear 
investigations about the necklace. The inference to be 
drawn is that Nepcote is responsible for the disappear- 
ance of the necklace, and is, therefore, deeply implicated 
in the murder.” 

“ Perhaps it was not Nepcote that you saw? ” suggested 
Caldew. He felt that the remark was a feeble one, but 
he was bewildered by the sudden turn of events, and in 
a frame of mind which clutches at straws. 

“ Put that doubt out of your mind,” said Colwyn. “ I 
saw his face distinctly. He had disappeared by the time 
I got down. The alley where he was standing com- 
manded a view of the entrance of this building. I ascer- 
tained that by standing in the same spot. His flight is 
another proof — though that was not needed — of his 
guilty knowledge and complicity in this murder. Why 
should he run away? According to his own story last 
night he had nothing to fear. But now, by his own ac- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


281 


tions, he has brought the utmost suspicion on himself.” 

“ I suppose it is no use searching about here for him? ” 
remarked Caldew, glancing gloomily out of the doorway. 

“ Not in the least. The neighbourhood is a warren of 
alleys and side streets from here to Grays Inn Road.” 

“ Then I shall go up to his flat at once,” said Caldew. 
“ He has not had time to go back.” 

“ He will not return to his flat. We have seen the last 
of him until we catch him. He has had two warnings, 
and he is not likely to be guilty of the folly of waiting 
to see whether lightning strikes thrice in the same spot. 
He will get away for good, this time, if he can. Never- 
theless it is worth while going to the flat. We may pick 
up some points there.” Colwyn uttered these last words 
in a lower tone at the sight of two office girls descending 
the staircase with much chatter and laughter. 

“ Let us go then.” 

They travelled by ’bus from Grays Inn Road as far as 
Oxford Circus, and walked along a number of quiet se- 
cluded streets — the backwaters of the West End — in 
order to reach Sherryman Street from the lower end, 
which, with a true sense of the fitness of things, was 
called Sherryman Street Approach. If the Approach had 
not been within a stone’s throw of Sherryman Square it 
might have been called a slum. It had tenement houses 
with swarms of squalid children playing in the open door- 
ways, its shops offered East End food — mussels and 
whelks, “ two-eyed steaks,” reeking fish-and-chips, and 
horsemeat for the cheap foreign element. There were 
several public-houses with groups of women outside 
drinking and gossiping, all wearing the black shawls 
which are as emblematic of the lower class London woman 
as a chasuble to a priest, or a blue tattooed upper lip to 
a high-caste Maori beauty. A costermonger hawked 


28 2 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


frozen rabbits from a donkey-cart, with a pallid woman 
following behind to drive away the mangy cats which 
quarrelled in the road for the oozing blood which dripped 
from the cart’s tail. An Italian woman, swarthy, squat, 
and intolerably dirty, ground out the “ Marseillaise ” from 
a barrel-organ with a shivering monkey capering atop, 
waving a small Union Jack, and impatiently rattling a tin 
can for coppers. 

To turn from this squalid quarter into Sherryman 
Street was to pass from the east to the west end of Lon- 
don at a step. It was as though an invisible line of de- 
marcation had been drawn between the lower and upper 
portion of the street, and held inviolate by the resi- 
dents of each portion. There were no public houses or 
fish-shops in Sherryman Street; no organ-grinders, cost- 
ermongers, unclean children, or women in black shawls. 
It had quiet, seclusion, clean pavements, polished door- 
knockers, and white curtains at the windows of its well- 
kept houses, which grew in dignity to the semblance of 
town mansions at the Square end. 

Number io showed a blank closed stone exterior to the 
passer-by, like an old grey secretive face. As they ap- 
proached it Colwyn, with a slight movement of his head, 
drew his companion’s attention to the upper windows 
which belonged to Nepcote’s flat. The blinds were down. 

" It looks as if Nepcote left last night,” he said. 

The sight of the drawn blinds, like yellow eyelids in the 
grey face, awakened some secret irritation in Caldew’s 
breast, and with it the realization of his powers as an of- 
ficer of Scotland Yard. 

“ I shall force a way in and see,” he angrily declared. 

“ Better get a key from the housekeeper,” suggested 
Colwyn. “ The women who look after these bachelor 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 283 

flats always have duplicate keys. But the front door is 
ajar. Let us go upstairs first.” 

They ascended the stairs to the flat, and the first 
thing they noticed was a Yale key in the keyhole of the 
door. 

“A sign of mental upfeet,” commented Colwyn. “At 
such moments people forget the little things.” 

They opened the door and entered. The front room 
was much as Colwyn had seen it the previous night. 
The flowers drooped in their bowl ; the chorus girls 
smirked in their silver settings ; the framed racehorses and 
their stolid trainers looked woodenly down from the pink 
walls. 

“ Nepcote does not seem to have taken anything away 
with him,” remarked Caldew, looking into the bedroom. 
“ The wardrobe is full of his uniforms, but the bed has 
not been occupied.” 

“ Here is the proof that he has fled, ,, said Colwyn, 
flinging back the lid of a desk which stood in the sitting- 
room. It was filled to the brim with a mass of torn pa- 
pers. 

“ Anything compromising ? ” asked Caldew, eagerly ap- 
proaching to look at the litter. 

“ No ; only bills and invitations. Any dangerous let- 
ters have been burnt there.” He pointed to the grate, 
which was heaped with blackened fragments. “ He’s 
made a good job of it too,” he added, as he went to the 
fireplace and bent over it. “ There’s not the slightest 
chance of deciphering a line. But it would be as well to 
search his clothes. He may have forgotten some letters 
in the pockets.” 

Caldew took the hint, and disappeared into the inner 
room, leaving Colwyn examining the contents of the 


284 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


grate. He returned in a few minutes to say that he had 
found nothing in the clothes except a few Treasury notes 
and some loose silver in a trousers’ pocket. 

“ That looks as if he had bolted in such a hurry that he 
forgot to take his change with him,” said Colwyn. “ It 
is another interesting revelation of his state of mind, be- 
cause there is very little doubt that he returned to the flat 
this morning after leaving it last night.” 

4< How do you arrive at that conclusion ? ” 

“ By the burnt letters in the grate. They are still 
warm. He was in such a state of fear that he dared not 
sleep in the flat last night, but he returned this morning 
to burn his letters and change into civilian clothes. Then 
he rushed away again in such a hurry that he forgot his 
money. There is nothing more to be seen here. We had 
better make a few inquiries of the housekeeper as we go 
downstairs.” 

They walked out, and Caldew locked the door behind 
him and placed the key in his pocket. When they reached 
the entrance hall Colwyn paused outside the door of the 
recess where the housekeeper lurked, like an octopus in a 
pool. At Colwyn’s knock a white face, topped by a white 
cap, came into view through the narrow slit in the cur- 
tained glass half of the door, and swam towards them in 
the interior gloom after the manner of the head of a ma- 
terialized ghost in a spirit medium’s parlour. The door 
opened, and the apparition appeared in the flesh, looking 
at them with stony eyes. Caldew undertook the conver- 
sation : ' 

“ Did Captain Nepcote sleep here last night? ” he curtly 
asked. 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Well, has he been here this morning? ” 

“ I don’t know.” The tone of the second reply was 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 285 

even more expressionless than the first, if that were pos- 
sible. 

“ It’s your business to know,” said Caldew angrily. 

“ It is not my business to discuss Captain Nepcote’s 
private affairs with strangers.” The woman turned back 
into her room without another word, closing the door 
behind her. 

“ D — n her ! ” muttered Caldew, in intense exaspera- 
tion. 

“ These ancient females learn the wisdom of controlling 
their natural garrulity when placed in charge of bachel- 
ors’ flats,” said Colwyn with a laugh. “ We will get noth- 
ing out of her if we stay here all day, so we had better go.” 

“ I am going straight back to Scotland Yard,” Caldew 
announced with sudden decision when they reached the 
pavement. “ I must tell Merrington all about this morn- 
ing’s work, and the sooner the better. We must have the 
flat watched. Perhaps Nepcote may return.” 

“ He will not return,” said Colwyn. “ He knows that 
we are after him, and that the flat will be watched. But 
it is a good idea not to let him have too long a start. 
Come, let us see if we can find a taxi, and I will drop you 
at Scotland Yard.” 

They walked along to Sherryman Square, and esteemed 
themselves fortunate in picking up a cruising taxi-cab with 
a driver sufficiently complaisant to drive them in the di- 
rection they wished to go. 


CHAPTER XXII 


It was to Merrington’s credit as an official that he sup- 
pressed his feelings as a man on hearing Caldew’s story, 
and did everything possible to retrieve the situation once 
he was convinced that Nepcote had fled. Any lingering 
doubts he may have had were scattered on learning, after 
confidential inquiry at Whitehall, that Captain Nepcote 
had not put in an appearance at the War Office that day, 
and had neither requested nor been granted leave of ab- 
sence from his duties. 

On receipt of this information Merrington turned to 
his office telephone, and, receiver in. hand, bellowed forth 
peremptory instructions which set in motion the far- 
reaching organization of Scotland Yard for the capture of 
a fugitive from justice. Nepcote’s description was circu- 
lated to police stations, detectives were told off to keep 
an eye on outgoing trains and the docks, and the entrances 
to the tubes and underground railways were watched. 
After enclosing London, Merrington made a wider cast, 
and long before nightfall he had flung around England a 
net of fine meshes through which no man could wriggle. 

But it is difficult even for Scotland Yard to lay quick 
hands on a fugitive in the vast city of London, as Mer- 
rington well knew. While waiting for the net to close 
over his destined captive, he decided in the new strange 
turn of the case to investigate the whole of the cir- 
cumstances afresh. Inquiries set afoot in London, with 
the object of discovering all that could be learnt of Nep- 
cote’s career and Violet Heredith’s single life, occupied 
286 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 287 

an important share in Scotland Yard's renewed investiga- 
tions into the Heredith murder. 

Caldew was sent to Heredith to look for new facts. 
He returned after a day's absence with information which 
might have been obtained before if chance had not di- 
rected suspicion to Hazel Rath : with a story of an un- 
known young man who had left the London train to 
Heredith at Weydene Junction on the night of the mur- 
der. The story, as extracted from an unintelligent ticket 
collector, threw no light on the identity of the stranger 
beyond a statement that he had worn a long light trench- 
coat, beneath which the collector had caught a glimpse of 
khaki uniform as the gentleman felt for his ticket at the 
barrier. 

On that slight information Caldew had pursued in- 
quiries across a long two miles of country between Wey- 
dene and the moat-house, and had deemed himself fortu- 
nate in finding a farm labourer who, on his homeward 
walk that night, had been passed by a young man in a long 
coat making rapidly across the fields in the direction of 
Heredith. The labourer had stared after the retreating 
figure until it disappeared in the darkness, and had then 
gone home without thinking any more of the incident. 
Caldew was so impressed by the significance of the sec- 
ond appearance of the man in the trench-coat that he had 
timed himself in a fast walk over the same ground from 
Weydene to the moat-house, and was able to cover the 
distance in half an hour. On the basis of these facts, he 
pointed out to Merrington that, if Nepcote was the man 
who left the train at Weydene at seven o’clock, he had 
time to walk across the fields and reach the moat-house by 
half-past seven, which was ten minutes before the murder 
was committed. 

Merrington admitted the possibility, but refused to 


288 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


accept the inference. He was forced by recent events to 
accept the theory of Nepcote’s implication in the mystery, 
but he was not prepared to believe without much more 
definite proof that he was the murderer. He was still 
strong in his belief that Hazel Rath was the person who 
had killed Mrs. Heredith, whatever the young man’s 
share in the crime might be. The discovery about the 
man in the trench-coat was all very well as far as it went, 
and perhaps formed another clue in the puzzling set of 
circumstances of the case, but it did not carry them very 
far, and certainly did nothing to lessen the weight of 
evidence against the girl who was charged with the mur- 
der. 

Merrington was forced back on the conclusion that the 
most important step towards the solution of the mystery 
was to lay hold of Nepcote, and to that end he directed 
his own efforts and that of the service of the great or- 
ganization at his command. As the days went on, he 
supplemented his original arrangements for Nepcote’s 
arrest with guileful traps. The female dragon who 
guarded masculine reputations at io, Sherryman Street, 
was badgered into cold anger by pretty girls, who sought 
with tips and blandishments to glean scraps of informa- 
tion about the missing tenant. Scented letters in female 
handwriting, marked “ Important,” appeared in the letter 
racks of Nepcote’s West End clubs. Merrington even 
inserted an advertisement in the “ Personal ” column of 
the Times, setting forth a touching female appeal to Nep- 
cote for a meeting in a sequestered spot. 

At the end of three days, with no sign of Nepcote in 
that period, Merrington was compelled to make applica- 
tion to the Sussex magistrates for another adjournment 
of the police court proceedings, on the ground that fresh 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


289 


information needed investigation before Scotland Yard 
could proceed with the charge against Hazel Rath. An 
additional week was granted with reluctance by the chair- 
man of the bench, a Nonconformist draper with political 
ambitions, who seized the opportunity to impress the elec- 
tors of a constituency he was nursing for the next general 
election by making some spirited remarks on the sanctity 
of British liberty, which he coupled with a scathing refer- 
ence to the dilatory methods of Scotland Yard. He let 
it be understood that the police must be prepared at the 
next hearing to go on with the charge against the prisoner 
or withdraw it altogether. 

In the face of these awkward alternatives, Merrington 
pursued the quest for Nepcote with vigour. The men 
working immediately under his instructions were spurred 
into an excess of energy which brought about the deten- 
tion of several young men who could not adequately ex- 
plain themselves or their right to liberty in the great city 
of London. But none of these captures turned out to be 
Nepcote. Merrington believed he was hiding in London, 
but at the end of five days he still remained mysteriously 
at liberty in spite of the constant search for him. He 
seemed to have disappeared as completely as though he 
had passed out of the world and merged his identity into 
a chiselled name and a banal aspiration on a tombstone. 

In the angry consciousness of failure, Merrington was 
not blind to the fact that he had only his own impetuosity 
to blame for allowing Nepcote to slip through his fingers. 
His mistake was due to his dislike of private detectives 
and his unbelief in modern deductive methods of crime 
solution. His own system, which is the system of Scot- 
land Yard, was based on motive and knowledge. If he 
found a strong motive for a crime he searched for the 


290 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


person to whom it pointed. If there was no apparent 
motive he fell back on his great knowledge of the under- 
world and its denizens to fit a criminal to the crime. 
The system has its measure of success, as the records of 
Scotland Yard attest. 

Merrington had brought both methods to bear in his 
handling of the Heredith case. When his original investi- 
gations failed to reveal a motive for the murder, he de- 
termined to return to London to ascertain what danger- 
ous criminals were at liberty who might have committed 
the murder. His own view then was that the murder 
was the work of an old hand who had entered the moat- 
house to commit burglary, and had murdered Mrs. Here- 
dith to escape identification. The isolation of the moat- 
house, the presence of guests with valuable jewels, the 
time chosen for the crime, and the scream of the victim, 
tended to confirm him in this belief. Caldew’s chance 
discovery about Hazel Rath, and the subsequent events 
which arrayed such strong circumstantial evidence against 
her, brought the other side of the system uppermost and 
set Merrington seeking for a motive which would accord 
with the presumption of the girl’s guilt. Having found 
that motive, he was satisfied that he had done his duty, 
and he thought very little more about the case. 

It was his tenacious adhesion to conservative methods 
which caused him to blunder in his treatment of Colwyn’s 
information about the missing necklace. He rarely acted 
on impulse. His habitual distrust of humanity was deep, 
and to it was wedded a wariness which was the heritage 
of long experience. But his obstinate conviction of Hazel 
Rath’s guilt led him to make a false move in his effort to 
square the loss of the necklace with the evidence against 
the girl. His own poor opinion of human nature hin- 
dered him from seeing, as Colwyn had seen, any inconse- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


291 


quence between such widely different motives as mad- 
dened love and theft; that was one of those subtle dif- 
ferentiations of human psychology in which his coarse- 
grained temperament was at fault. It is probable that 
Merrington’s dislike of private detectives contributed to 
obscure his judgment at a critical moment. He was un- 
able to see that Colwyn, by reason of his intellect and 
practical capacity, stood in a class apart and alone. 

In his contemplation of the case Merrington’s thoughts 
turned to Colwyn, and he wondered in what direction the 
private detective’s investigations into the case had pro- 
gressed — if they had progressed at all — since he had 
seen him last. In a chastened mood, he reflected that 
Colwyn had not only given him a warning which was an- 
noyingly different from other advice in being well worth 
following, but had acted generously in informing him of 
the missing necklace when he might have kept the dis- 
covery to himself, in order to score a point over Scot- 
land Yard and place one of the Yard’s most distinguished 
officials in an awkward position. 

With a belated but unconscious recognition of an intel- 
ligence which far surpassed his own, Merrington felt 
that it would be worth while to have another talk with 
Colwyn, in the hope of finding some way out of the per- 
plexities in which he had plunged himself by permitting 
Nepcote to escape. * 

The next interview, which was of his seeking, took 
place at Colwyn’s rooms in the evening, after Merring- 
ton had previously arranged for it by telephone. The face 
of the private detective revealed neither surprise nor 
resentment at the sight of Merrington. He invited his 
guest to sit down, and then seated himself a little distance 
from the table, on which whisky and cigars were set out. 

“ Well, Mr. Colwyn, you were right and I was wrong 


2 9 2 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


about that fellow Nepcote,” Merrington commenced, rea- 
lizing that it was best to come to the point at once. “ I 
wish now that I had followed your advice.” 

“If you hadn’t gone to see him perhaps you wouldn’t 
know as much as you know now,” said Colwyn drily. 

“ That’s one way of looking at it,” responded Merring- 
ton with his great laugh. “ Unfortunately, that inter- 
view caused Nepcote to bolt, and so far he has shown us 
a clean pair of heels.” 

“You’ve had no news of him?” 

“ Only a lot of false reports. I am convinced that he 
is still hiding in London, but the trouble is to get hold 
of him. These infernal darkened streets make it more 
difficult. A wanted man can walk along them at night 
right under the nose of the police without fear of being 
seen.” 

“ Have you made any fresh discoveries about the 
case ? ” 

“ We have ascertained that a man who may have been 
Nepcote was seen near the moat-house on the night of 
the murder.” 

Colwyn nodded indifferently. The tracing of Nep- 
cote’s movements on the night of the murder was to him 
one of the minor points of the problem, like the first 
pawn move in chess — essential, but without real signifi- 
cance, in view of the inevitable inference of the flight. 

“ I have been working on the case from this end,” he 
said. 

“ In what direction ? ” 

“ Trying to arrive at the beginning of the mystery. I 
have been endeavouring to find out something about Mrs. 
Heredith’s earlier life. It struck me that it might throw 
some light on the subsequent events.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


293 


“ I have been investigating along similar lines. Shall 
we compare notes ? ” 

“ With pleasure, but I should think that you have 
been able to find out more than I have been able to dis- 
cover single-handed. For one thing, I have seen Lady 
Vaughan, the wife of Sir William Vaughan, of the War 
Office. She is a kind and gracious woman, taking a great 
interest in the hundreds of girl clerks employed at her 
husband’s department in Whitehall. Last winter she gave 
a series of dances at her house in Knightsbridge, and the 
girls were invited in turns. Mr. Heredith was present at 
one of these functions.” 

“ So much I know,” said Merrington. 

“Then you are probably aware that Captain Nepcote 
was also present that evening, and brought several other 
young officers with him. It was he who introduced Philip 
Heredith to the girl whom he afterwards married.” 

“ I knew Nepcote was a guest at one of the dances, 
but it is news to me that he introduced the girl to young 
Heredith. Lady Vaughan did not tell us this.” 

“ Lady Vaughan did not know. I ascertained the fact 
later from one of the guests who witnessed the introduc- 
tion. I attach some importance to the point. Last winter 
Philip Heredith and Nepcote were on fairly intimate 
terms, working together in the same room at the War Of- 
fice, and sometimes going together to the houses of mutual 
friends. It was evidently a case of the attraction of op- 
posites.” 

“ It must have been,” replied Merrington emphatically. 
“ I have had inquiries made about Nepcote, and I should 
not have thought he would have appealed to Mr. Heredith. 
There is nothing actually wrong so far as we can learn, 
but he had the reputation, before the war, of a fast and 


294 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


idle young man about town, with a weakness for women 
and gambling. He came into a few thousands some years 
ago, but soon spent it. I imagine that he has subsisted 
principally on credit and gambling since he squandered 
his money, for he is certainly not the type of man to live 
on his pay as an officer. As a matter of fact, he was in 
serious trouble with the Army authorities recently for not 
paying his mess bills in France. He was not brought 
up to the Army, and he has seen very little active serv- 
ice. He got his captain's commission about twelve 
months after the war commenced, when the War Office 
was handing out commissions like boxes of matches, but 
he managed to keep under the Whitehall umbrella until 
quite recently. He seems to have a bit of a pull some- 
where, though I cannot find out where. Perhaps it is his 
charm of manner — everybody who knows him says he 
has a charming manner, though it wasn’t apparent to me 
that night I interviewed him at his flat.” 

“ Perhaps he was too afraid to exercise it on that oc- 
casion,” suggested .Colwyn, with a smile. “ He must 
have thought that it was all up with him.” 

“ Have you discovered anything about Mrs. Heredith’s 
antecedents ? ” asked Merrington with an abruptness 
which suggested that he had little relish for the last re- 
mark. 

“ Very little, apart from the fact that she lived in 
rooms, and had no real girl friends, so far as I can ascer- 
tain. Apparently she was a girl who played a lone hand, 
as they say in America. The type is not uncommon in 
large cities. My information, such as it is, is not of 
the least importance one way or the other.” 

“ I have learnt very little more than you, except that 
she changed her rooms pretty frequently, but always kept 
within an easy radius of the West End, living in dull but 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


295 


respectable neighbourhoods like Russell Square and Wo- 
burn Place. It was precious little time she spent there, 
though. The people of these places know nothing about 
her except that she used to go out in the morning and did 
not return till late at night — generally in a taxi, and 
alone, so far as is known. She was, apparently, one of 
those bachelor girls who have sprung into existence in 
thousands during the war — one of that distinct species 
who trade on their good looks and are out for a good time, 
but keep sufficiently on the safe side of the fence to be 
careful of their reputations. It’s part of their stock in 
trade. 

“ Such girls contrive to go everywhere and see every- 
thing at the expense of young men with more money than 
brains, who have been caught by their looks. It's the 
Savoy for lunch, a West End restaurant for dinner, re- 
vue, late supper, and home in a taxi — with perhaps a 
kiss for the lot by way of payment. The War Office was 
a godsend to this type of girl. It gives them jobs with 
nothing to do, with a kind of official standing thrown in, 
and the chance of meeting plenty of young officers over 
on leave from the front, with money to burn and hungry 
for pretty English faces. It is difficult to find out any- 
thing about these bachelor girls. They have no homes — 
only a place to sleep in — they confide in nobody, and their 
men friends will never give them away. Almost any 
woman will give away a man, but I have never yet known 
a man give away a woman.” 

“If Mrs. Heredith was that type of girl, it is possible 
that some early episode or forgotten flirtation in her 
past life is mixed up with the mystery of her death/’ 

“You think that, do you?” asked Merrington regard- 
ing his companion attentively. 

“ How else can we explain Nepcote’s appearance in the 


296 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


mystery, except on the ground that he may have mur- 
dered her for the necklace? It is important to bear in 
mind that Nepcote knew her in her single days. If she 
had a secret she has taken it to the grave with her. There 
remains Nepcote, who is deeply implicated in the case in 
some way. You may learn something from him if you 
can catch him and induce him to speak, though I must 
confess I find it difficult to reconcile the supposition that 
he committed the murder with the known circumstances 
of the case.” 

“ There I agree with you,” exclaimed Merrington. 
“ What is Hazel Rath's position if we admit any such 
supposition? Nothing has yet come to light to shake the 
evidence which points to her as the person who murdered 
Mrs. Heredith.” 

“Does she still refuse to speak?” 

“ Yes. She is as obstinate as a mule and as mute as 
a fish. I sent a very clever woman detective down to the 
gaol at Lewes to try and coax her to say something, but 
she could get nothing out of her. She said she had no 
statement to make, and nothing whatever to say. She 
refused to go beyond that.” 

“ She may have some strong reason for keeping si- 
lence,” remarked Colwyn thoughtfully. “ Arrested per- 
sons sometimes remain silent under a grave charge be- 
cause they are anxious to keep certain knowledge in their 
possession from the police. Nepcote’s implication in the 
case lends colour to the theory that Hazel Rath may be 
keeping silent for some such purpose.” 

“In order to shield Nepcote?” 

“ It is possible, though I do not think we are in a po- 
sition to infer that much without further knowledge. But 
now that we know that Nepcote is connected with the case 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


297 

I certainly think that a strong effort should be made to 
induce Hazel Rath to speak.” 

“ It is not to be done,” replied Merrington, with an 
emphatic shake of the head. “ The girl is not to 
drawn.” 

“ Have you told her about the recent developments of 
the case ? ” 

“ About Nepcote, do you mean? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Certainly not,” replied Merrington, in a tone of out- 
raged officialism. “To give the girl that piece of in- 
formation before I know what it means would place such 
a powerful weapon in the hands of the lawyer for the de- 
fence that I should have to withdraw the charge against 
Hazel Rath at the next police court proceedings if I did 
not arrest Nepcote in the meantime. I do not want any 
dramatic developments — as the idiotic newspapers call it 
— in my cases. There is a certain amount of public 
sympathy with this girl already.” 

“ I think you stand to gain more than you lose by tell- 
ing her that Nepcote is suspected.” 

“ I prefer to arrest Nepcote first. We may get him 
at any moment, and then, I hope, we shall find out where 
we stand in this case. But what do you mean by saying 
that I have more to gain than lose by telling the girl 
about him ? ” 

“If she is keeping silent to shield Nepcote, she is likely 
to reveal the truth when she knows that there is nothing 
more to be gained by silence. She will then begin to 
think of herself. In my opinion, you have now an excel- 
lent weapon in your hand to force her to speak.” 

“ Can we go so far as to assume that she is keeping 
silence to shield him? Let us assume that they went 


2g8 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


to Mrs. Heredith’s room together for the purpose of mur- 
der and robbery. The girl, we will suppose, fired the shot 
and Nepcote escaped from the window with the necklace. 
Is Hazel Rath likely to reveal such a story when she knows 
it will not save herself ? ” 

“ Your assumptions carry you too far,” returned Col- 
wyn. “ Our presumptive knowledge does not take us 
that distance. Till Nepcote’s share in the case is ex- 
plained it is useless indulging in speculations outside our 
premises. Let us defer inferences until we have mar- 
shalled more facts. We do not know whether more than 
one pair of eyes witnessed the murder of Mrs. Heredith ; 
the theory that Hazel Rath fired the shot is merely a pre- 
sumption of fact, and not an actual certainty. Much is 
still hidden in this case, and the question is, can Hazel 
Rath enlighten us? As she and Nepcote are now both 
implicated, it seems to me that the best inducement to get 
her to speak is by letting her know that you have arrested 
Nepcote. In my opinion, the experiment is well worth 
trying.” 

Merrington rose to his feet and paced across the room, 
pondering over the proposal. 

“ I am inclined to believe you are right,” he said. “ At 
any rate, I shall go down to Lewes to-morrow and put it 
to the test. I would ask you to accompany me, but it 
would be a little irregular.” 

“ I shall be content to learn the result,” Colwyn an- 
swered. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


There are moments when the human brain refuses to 
receive communication from its peripheries, and the ra- 
pidity of thought becomes so slow that it can be measured 
by minutes. The stage of consciousness on which life’s 
drama is solitarily played for every human being is too 
circumscribed to expand all at once for the reception of a 
strange and unexpected image. Such moments follow in 
the wake of a great shock, like a black curtain descending 
on a lighted scene. When the curtain begins to rise again 
it is on a darkened stage, on which the objects are seen 
dimly at first, then clearer as returning intelligence, work- 
ing slowly for the accommodation of the new setting, 
places the fresh impression in order with the throng of 
previously existing ideas. 

Such a moment seemed to have come to Hazel Rath 
as she stood looking at Merrington, who sat in an easy 
chair on the other side of the table confronting her with 
the tangible perception of his massive presence, rein- 
forced by the weight of an authority which, if not so per- 
ceptible, was sufficiently apparent in the stolid blue back 
of a policeman on duty outside the glass door, and in the 
barred windows of the little room to which she had been 
brought to receive the news which had just been con- 
veyed to her. But she gave no sign of having heard, or, at 
least, understood the import of Merrington’s relation. 
Her dark eyes wandered around the little office, and 
slowly returned to the face of the big man who was 
watching her so closely. Her look, which at first had 
been one of utter bewilderment, now revealed a trace of 
299 


300 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


incredulity which suggested a returning power for the 
assimiliation of ideas. But she did not speak. 

“Have you nothing to say?” Merrington demanded. 
He had been a silent listener to many criminal confes- 
sions in his time, but in the unusual reversion of roles he 
was becoming unreasonably angry with the girl for not 
repaying his confidence with her own story. 

His loud hectoring voice startled her, and seemed to 
accelerate the mechanism of her mind into the association 
of her surroundings with her position. 

“ Why did you bring me here to torture me ? ” she cried, 
with a sudden rush of shrill utterance which was, in its 
way, almost as pitiful and surprising as her previous si- 
lence. “ Oh, why cannot you leave me alone ? ” 

She threw her arms out wildly, then, as if realizing the 
futility of gesture, dropped them helplessly to her sides. 
There was something in the action which suggested a 
bird trying to stretch its wings in a cramped cage. Her 
quivering lips, tense facial muscles, and strained yet rest- 
less bearing plainly revealed an unbalanced temperament, 
bending beneath the weight of a burden too heavy and 
sustained. As an experienced police official, Merrington 
was well versed in the little signs which indicate the 
breaking point of imprisonment in those unused to it. 
He saw that Hazel Rath had reached a state in which 
kindness and consideration, but no other means, might in- 
duce her to tell all she knew. 

“ Come now, my good girl,” he said in a gentle pleas- 
ant voice which would have astonished Caldew beyond 
measure if he had heard it, “ nobody wants to torture 
you. On the contrary, I have come down from London 
purposely to help you.” 

He paused for a moment in order to allow this remark 
to sink into her mind and then went on : 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


301 


“ I do not think that you quite understood what I have 
been trying to tell you. I will tell you again, and I wish 
you to listen to me for your own sake.” 

He glanced at her again, and satisfied that he had now 
gained her attention, repeated the news he had endeav- 
oured to tell her previously. The story, which he em- 
bellished with additional details as he went on, was a prac- 
tical demonstration of the trick of conveying a false im- 
pression without telling an actual untruth. Merrington’s 
sole aim was to convince Hazel that further silence on 
her part was useless, so, to that end, he used the incident 
of his visit to Nepcote’s flat in a way to suggest that 
Nepcote’s admission of the ownership of the revolver 
amounted to an admission of his own complicity in the 
murder. 

It was an adroit narration — Merrington conceded that 
much to himself, not without some pride in his own crea- 
tion — but he was not prepared for its immediate and 
overmastering effect on the girl. She listened to him with 
an intensity of interest which was in the strangest contrast 
with her former inattention and indifference. When 
Merrington reached the point of his revelations by tell- 
ing her about the missing necklace in order to assure her 
that the police were aware that Nepcote had gained more 
from the commission of the crime than she had, she sur- 
prised him by springing to her feet, her eyes blazing with 
excitement. 

“ I knew it would be proved that I am innocent,” she 
exclaimed. “Now I can tell you all I know.” 

“ It is the very best course you can pursue,” responded 
Merrington with emphasis. 

“ I know it — I see it now ! Oh, I have been very fool- 
ish. But I — ” A burst of hysterical tears choked fur- 
ther utterance. 


302 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


Merrington waited patiently until she recovered her- 
self. He was troubled by no qualms of gentlemanly eti- 
quette at watching the distress of the distraught girl sob- 
bing wildly at the little table between them. There is a 
wide difference between pampered beauty in distress and a 
female prisoner in self-abasement. So he waited com- 
posedly enough until she lifted her head and regarded 
him with dark wistful eyes through a glitter of tears. 

“ You had better tell me all,” he said. 

“ Yes, I will tell you everything now,” she quickly re- 
plied. 

“ Before you do so it is my duty to warn you that 
any statement you make may be used in evidence against 
you at your trial,” Merrington said, with a swift resump- 
tion of his official manner. “ At the same time, I think 
you will be acting in your own interest by keeping nothing 
back.” 

“ I quite understand. But it is such a strange story 
that I hardly know how to begin.” 

“ Tell me everything from the first. That will be the 
best way.” 

“ That night I went up to Mrs. Heredith’s room just to 
see her,” she commenced, almost in a whisper. “ My 
mother had told me earlier in the evening that she was 
alone in her room suffering from a headache. I thought I 
would take the opportunity while the others were at din- 
ner to go up to her room and ask her if she wanted any- 
thing. So I left my mother’s room and walked quietly 
down the hall to the left wing. There was nobody about. 
All the guests were at dinner, and the servants were busy 
in the kitchen and the dining-room. 

“ When I got upstairs I noticed that Mrs. Heredith’s 
door was open a little, and I saw that there was no light 
in the room. I thought that strange until I remembered 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


303 


she had been suffering from a bad headache, and 
probably had turned off the light to rest her head. I did 
not knock because I thought she might be asleep. I was 
just going to turn away when I heard a sound like a sob 
within the room. I listened, and heard it again. I hardly 
knew what to do at first, but the thought came to me that 
perhaps Mrs. Heredith was worse, and needed someone. 
So I pushed open the door and went in. 

“ I know the moat-house well, so I was aware that 
the switch of the electric light was by the side of the 
fireplace, near the head of the bed, and not close to the 
door, as in the other rooms. To turn on the light I had 
to walk across the room. It was very dark, and I walked 
cautiously for fear of stumbling and alarming Mrs. Here- 
dith. Twice I stopped to listen, and once I heard a sound 
like somebody whispering. I was dreadfully nervous be- 
cause I didn’t know whether I was doing right or wrong 
by going into Mrs. Heredith’s room like that, but some- 
thing seemed to urge me on. 

“ I must have mistaken my direction in the dark, for 
I couldn’t find the electric switch. I kept running my 
hand along the wall in search of it, and while I was doing 
this, somebody caught me suddenly by the throat. 

“ All the blood in my veins seemed to turn to ice, and 
I screamed loudly. Immediately I screamed the hand let 
go, but I was too frightened to move. It was so silent 
in the room then, that I could hear my own heart beating, 
but as I stood there by the wall not daring to move I 
thought I heard a rustling sound by the window. My 
hands kept wandering over the wall behind me, trying 
to find the switch of the light. Then, suddenly, there 
was a dreadful sound — the report of a gun. It seemed 
to fill the room with echoes, which rolled to the window 
and back again. As the sound of the report died away, 


304 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


my fingers touched the switch and I turned on the light. 

“ I was standing close to the head of the bed, and the 
first thing I noticed was something glittering on the car- 
pet at my feet. I stooped and picked it up. It was a re- 
volver. Then my eyes turned to the bed, and I saw 
poor Mrs. Heredith. She was lying quite still with blood 
on her mouth. I could see that she was still alive, be- 
cause her eyes looked at me. At that terrible sight I 
forgot everything except that she was in agony. I was 
bending over her wiping her mouth when I caught the 
sound of footsteps running up the stairs. It flashed 
across my mind that I must not be found there, in a 
room where I had no right to be, holding in my hand a 
revolver which had just been discharged. I switched 
off the light and ran out of the room. The light from 
the landing outside guided me to the door. I had 
just time to get outside and slip behind the velvet 
curtains when some of the gentlemen appeared on the 
landing. 

“ I stayed there hidden for some time, too frightened 
to move, and expecting every moment to be discovered. 
I could hear them moving about searching, and I thought 
that somebody would draw aside the curtains and see me 
hiding underneath. But nobody came near me. I heard 
them go into Mrs. Heredith’s room, and Mr. Musard 
started talking. The corridor was silent, and it seemed 
to me that I had a chance of escaping downstairs if the 
staircase was clear. I crept across to the balusters, still 
keeping under the cover of the curtains, and looked over. 
I could see nobody in the hall downstairs. I slipped the 
revolver into my dress and ran downstairs as quickly as 
I could. I got to the hall without meeting anyone, and 
then I knew that I was safe. But just as I turned into 
the passage leading to my mothers rooms I heard the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


305 


dining-room door open. I looked back and saw Tufnell 
come out and go upstairs, but he did not see me. Then 
I reached my mother’s rooms.” 

She was silent so long that Merrington thought she 
had finished her story. “ And what about your brooch 
— the brooch which you dropped in the room. When 
did you get that again ? ” 

“ I did not miss it until some time after I had returned 
downstairs. I wondered at first where I had dropped it. 
I then remembered the hand on my throat, which must 
have unloosened the brooch and caused it to fall. I knew 
it was necessary for me to recover it so it would not 
be known that I had been in the room. The house was 
very quiet then, and the hall was empty, though I could 
hear the murmur of voices in the library, so I walked 
along the hall and ran upstairs. The door of the bed- 
room was partly open, and by the light within I could 
see that the room was empty — except for her. I went 
into the room. The first thing I saw was my little brooch 
shining on the carpet, close by the bedside, near where 
I had been standing when the hand clutched at my throat. 
I picked it up and ran downstairs.” 

“ Is that the whole of your story?” 

She considered for a moment. “ Yes, I think that I 
have told you everything.” 

“ What took you to Mrs. Heredith’s room in the first 
place ? ” 

“I — I wanted to see her.” 

“ For what purpose? If you want me to help you, you 
had better be frank.” 

“ I wished to see the girl whom Mr. Phil had mar- 
ried.” She brought out the answer hesitatingly, but the 
colour which flooded her thin white cheeks showed that 
she was aware of the implication of the admission. 


30 6 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


But Merrington was impervious to the finer feelings 
of the heart. He disbelieved her story from beginning 
to end, and was of the opinion that she was trying to hoax 
him with a concoction as crude as the vain imaginings of 
melodrama or the cinema. It was more with the inten- 
tion of trapping her into a contradiction than of eliciting 
anything of importance that he continued his questions. 

“ You say that you heard a noise at the window after 
the shot was fired. What did you imagine it to be ? ” 

“ I was too nervous at the time to think anything about 
it, but since I have thought that it must have been 
someone getting out of the window.” 

“ Did you hear the window being opened ? ” 

“No; I heard nothing but the rustle, as I told you. 
But it may have been the wind, or my fear.” 

“ Did you catch a glimpse of the person in the room 
— whoever it was — when you were caught by the 
throat ? ” 

“No. I only felt the hand. It was quite dark, and 
I could see nothing.” 

“You are quite sure this happened to you? You are 
sure it is not imagination ? ” 

“ Oh, no, it was too terribly real.” 

“ Did you observe anything about the revolver when 
you picked it up ? ” said Merrington after a pause. 

“ No, except that it was bright and shining.” 

“ Nor when you placed it in your dress to carry it 
downstairs ? ” 

“ I do not know anything about fire-arms. When I 
got downstairs I locked it away as quickly as I could.” 

“ So you picked up a revolver which had just been 
fired, without noticing whether the barrel was hot or cold. 
Is that what you wish me to believe ? ” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


307 


“ I picked it up by the handle. I seem to remember 
now that it was warm, but I cannot be sure. I hardly 
knew what I was doing at the time.” 

Her confusion was so evident that Merrington did not 
think it worth while to pursue the point. 

“If your story is true, why have you not told it be- 
fore?” he said. “If you are merely the unfortunate 
victim of circumstances that you claim to be, why did 
you not announce your innocence when I was question- 
ing you at the moat-house on the day after the murder? ” 

The girl hesitated perceptibly before answering the 
question. 

“ Perhaps I might have done so but for your recogni- 
tion of my mother,” she said at length, in a low tone. 

“ I fail to see how that affected your own position.” 

“ It seemed to me then that it did,” she responded in 
a firmer tone. “ I knew that my story sounded improb- 
able, but after learning what you knew about my mother 
it seemed to me that you would be even less likely to 
believe me, so I thought the best thing I could do was 
to keep silence, and trust to the truth coming to light 
in some other way.” 

The recollection of the incidents of his visit to the 
moat-house came thronging into Merrington’s mind at this 
reply. 

“ Did you see your mother when you got downstairs 
on the night of the murder? ” he asked. 

“ Not at first. She came in afterwards.” 

“How long afterwards?” 

The girl, struck by a new note in his voice, looked at 
him with horror in her widened eyes. 

“ I understand what you mean,” she replied, “ but you 
are wrong — quite wrong. My mother knows nothing 


3°8 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


whatever about it. She did not even know that I had 
been upstairs. She is as innocent as I am.” 

“ That does not carry us very far,” said Merrington 
coldly, rising to his feet and touching a bell in front of 
him. “ I do not believe you have told all.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


Strong in his conviction that the story of Hazel Rath 
was largely the product of an hysterical imagination, 
Merrington dismissed it from his mind and devoted all 
his energies to the search for Nepcote. The task looked 
a difficult one, but Merrington did not despair of accom- 
plishing it before the day came round for the adjourned 
hearing of the charge against the girl. He knew that it 
was a difficult matter for a wanted man to remain uncap- 
tured in a civilized community for any length of time 
if the pursuit was determined enough, and in this in- 
stance the military police were assisting the criminal au- 
thorities. 

Merrington’s own plans for Nepcote’s capture were 
based on the belief that he had not the means to get away 
from London unless the Heredith necklace was still in 
his possession. As that seemed likely enough, Nepcote’s 
description was circulated among the pawnbrokers and 
jewellers, with a request that anyone offering the neck- 
lace should be detained until a policeman could be called 
in. He also had Nepcote’s former haunts watched in 
case the young man endeavoured to approach any of his 
friends or acquaintances for a loan. Having taken these 
steps in the hope of starving Nepcote into surrender if 
he was not caught in the meantime, Merrington next 
directed the resources at his command to putting London 
through a fine-tooth comb, as he expressed it, in the effort 
to get hold of his man. 

But it was to chance that he owed his first indication 
309 


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THE HAND IN THE DARK 


of Nepcote’s movements since his disappearance. He 
was dictating official correspondence in his private room 
at Scotland Yard three days after his visit to Lewes, 
when a subordinate officer entered to say that a man had 
called who wished to see somebody in authority. It was 
Merrington’s custom to interview callers who visited 
Scotland Yard on mysterious errands which they re- 
fused to disclose in the outer office. The information he 
received from such sources more than compensated for 
the occasional intrusion of criminals with grudges or 
bores with public grievances. 

The man who followed the janitor into the room was 
neither the one nor the other, but a weazened white- 
faced Londoner, with a shrewd eye and the false, cring- 
ing smile of a small shopkeeper. He explained in the 
strident vernacular of the Cockney that his name was 
Henry HoSbs — “ Enery Obbs ” was his own version of 
it — and he kept a pawnbroker’s shop in the Caledonian 
Road. It was his intention to have called at Scotland 
Yard earlier, he explained, but his arrangements had 
been upset by a domestic event in his own household. 

“ They’ve kep’ me runnin’ about ever since it hap- 
pened,” he added, bestowing a wink of subtle meaning 
upon the pretty typist who had been taking Merrington’s 
correspondence^ “ The ladies * — bless their ’earts — al- 
ways make a fuss over a little one.” 

“ When it is legitimate,” Merrington gruffly corrected. 
4t Miss Benson,” he said, turning to the typist, who sat 
in a state of suspended animation over the typewriter at 
the word where he had left off dictating, “ you can leave 
me for a little while and come back later. Now my 
man,” he went on, as the door closed behind her, “ I’ve 
no time to waste discussing babies. Tell me the object 
of your visit.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


3ii 

The little man stood his ground with the imperturbable 
assurance of the Cockney. 

“We thought of calling it Victory ’Aig. Victory, be- 
cause our London lads seem likely to finish off the war 
in double-quick time, and ’Aig after our commander, good 
old Duggie ’Aig, whose name is every bit good enough 
for my baby. What do you think? Don’t get your ’air 
off, guv’nor,” Mr. Hobbs hastily protested, in some alarm 
at the expression of Merrington’s face, “ I’m coming to it 
fast enough, but my head is so full of this here kiddy 
that I hardly know whether I’m standing on my ’ead or 
my ’eels. It’s like this ’ere : a few days ago there was a 
young man come into my shop to pawn his weskit. I 
lent him arf-a-crown on it and he goes away. But, yes- 
terday afternoon he comes back to pawn a little pencil- 
case, on which I lends him a shilling. Now, I shouldn’t 
be surprised if this young man wasn’t the young man 
we was warned to look out for as likely to offer a pearl 
necklace.” 

“ What makes you think so ? ” 

“ By the description. I didn’t notice him much at first, 
but I did the second time, perhaps because I’d just been 
reading over the ’andbill before he come in. He looks 
a bit the worse for wear since it was drawn up — hadn’t 
been shaved and seemed down on his luck — but I should 
say it was the same man, even to the bits of grey on 
the temples. Bin a bit of a dandy and a gentleman be- 
fore he run to seed, I should say.” 

“What makes you think that?” asked Merrington, 
who had scant belief in the theory that gentility has a 
hallmark of its own. 

“ Not his white hands — they’re nothing to go by. It 
was his clothes. I was a tailor in Windmill Street be- 
fore I went in for pawnbroking, and I know. This chap’s 


3 12 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


suit hadn’t been ’acked out in the City or in one of those 
places in Cheapside where they put notices in the win- 
dow to say that the foreman cutter is the only man in 
the street who gets twelve quid a week. They hadn’t 
come from Crouch End, neither. They was first-class 
West End garments. It’s the same with clothes as it is 
with thoroughbred hosses and women — you can always 
tell them, no matter how they’ve come down in the world. 
And it’s like that with boots too. This chap’s boots 
hadn’t been cleaned for days, but they were boots, and 
not holes to put your feet into, like most people wear.” 

“ You made no effort to detain him? ” 

“ How could I ? He didn’t offer the necklace, or say 
anything about jewels, so I had no reason for stopping 
him. I could see ’e was as nervous as a lady the whole 
time he was in the shop, so before I gave him a shilling 
for his pencil I marked it with a cross as something to 
’elp the police get on his tracks in case he is the man 
you’re after. When he left I went to my door to see 
if there was a policeman in sight, but of course there 
wasn’t. I doubt if he’d have got him, though. He was 
off like a shot as soon as he got the shilling — down a 
side street and then up another, going towards King’s 
Cross. Here’s the pencil-case he pawned. I didn’t bring 
the weskit, but you can ’ave it if it’s any good to you.” 

Merrington glanced carelessly at the little silver pencil- 
case, and after asking the pawnbroker a few questions 
he permitted him to depart. Then he touched his bell 
and sent for Detective Caldew. 

Half an hour later Caldew emerged from his chief’s 
room in possession of the pawnbroker’s story, with the 
addition of as much authoritative counsel as the mind 
of Merrington could suggest for its investigation. Cal- 
dew did not relish the task of following up the slender 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


313 


clue. He had not been impressed by the relation of Mr. 
Hobbs’ supposed recognition of Nepcote, although as a 
detective he was aware that unlikely statements were 
sometimes followed by important results. But the ele- 
ment of luck entered largely into the elucidation of chance 
testimony. There were some men in Scotland Yard who 
could turn a seeming fairy tale into a startling fact, but 
there were others who failed when the probabilities were 
stronger. Caldew accounted himself one of these un- 
lucky ones. 

But luck was with him that day. At least, it seemed 
so to him that evening, as he returned to Holborn after 
a long and trying afternoon spent in the squalid streets 
and slums of St Pancras and Islington. The goddess 
of Chance, bestowing her favours with true feminine 
caprice, had taken it into her wanton head, at the last 
moment, to accomplish for him the seemingly impossible 
feat of tracing the pawnbroker’s marked shilling, through 
various dirty hands, to the pocket of the man who had 
pawned the pencil-case. Whether she would grant him 
the last favour of all, by enabling him to prove whether 
this man and Nepcote were identical, was a point Caldew 
intended to put to the proof that night. 

Caldew was in high good humour with himself at such 
a successful day’s work, and he alighted from the tram 
with the intention of passing a couple of hours pleasantly 
by treating himself to a little dinner in town before re- 
turning to Islington to complete his investigations. He 
wandered along from New Oxford Street to Charing 
Cross by way of Soho, scanning the restaurant menus 
as he passed with the indecisive air of a poor man un- 
used to the privilege of paying high rates for bad food 
in strange surroundings. 

The foreign smells and greasy messes of Old Compton 


314 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


Street repelled his English appetite, and he did not care 
to mingle with the herds of suburban dwellers who were 
celebrating the fact that they were alive by making un- 
couth merriment over three-and-sixpenny tables d’hotes 
and crude Burgundy and Chianti in the cheap glitter of 
Wardour Street As a disciplined husband and father, 
Caldew’s purse did not permit of his going further West 
for his refection, so when he reached Charing Cross he 
turned his face in the direction of Fleet Street. He had 
almost made up his mind in favour of a small English 
eating-house half-way down the Strand, when he en- 
countered Colwyn. 

The private detective was wearing a worn tweed suit 
and soft hat, which had the effect of making a consider- 
able alteration in his appearance. He was about to en- 
ter the eating-house, but stopped at the sight of Caldew 
looking in the window, and advanced to shake hands with 
him. 

“Thinking of dining here, Caldew?” he asked. 

“ Yes,” replied Caldew. “ It seems a quiet place.” 

“ It certainly has that merit,” responded Colwyn, 
glancing into the empty interior of the little restaurant. 
“You had better dine with me if you have nothing bet- 
ter to do. I should like to have a talk with you.” 

Caldew expressed a pleased acquiescence. He had not 
seen the private detective since he had taken him a copy 
of Merrington’s notes of his interview with Hazel Rath, 
and he wished to know whether Colwyn had made any 
fresh discoveries in the Heredith case. 

At their entrance, a waiter reclining against the cash 
desk sprang into supple life, and with a smile of pros- 
pective gratitude sped ahead up the staircase, casting 
backward glances of invitation like a gustatory siren en- 
ticing them to a place of bliss. He led them into a room 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


3i5 


overlooking the Thames Embankment, hung up their hats, 
took the wine card from the frame of the mirror over 
the mantelpiece, wrote down the order for the dinner, and 
disappeared downstairs to get the dishes. 

“ It seems to me that you’ve been here before,” said 
Caldew. 

“ I always come here when I have an expedition in 
hand,” was the response. 

Caldew wondered whether his companion’s expedition 
was connected with the Heredith mystery, but before he 
could frame the question the waiter returned with a 
bottle of wine, and shortly afterwards the dinner ap- 
peared. It was not until the meal was concluded that 
Colwyn broached the subject which was uppermost in 
his guest’s thoughts by asking him if he had met with 
any success in his search for Nepcote. 

“ We are still looking for him,” was Caldew’s guarded 
reply, as he accepted a cigar from his companion’s case. 

“In Islington, for instance?” The light Colwyn held 
to his own cigar revealed the smile on his lips. 

Caldew was so surprised at this shrewd guess that his 
match slipped from his figners. 

“ What makes you think we are looking for Nepcote 
in Islington?” he demanded. 

“ I am not unacquainted with the ingenious methods 
of Scotland Yard,” was the reply. “ I can see Merring- 
ton working it out with a scale map of London to help 
him. He is convinced that Nepcote is still in London 
without a penny in his pockets. Herrington asks him- 
self what Nepcote is likely to do in such circumstances? 
Borrow from his friends or attempt to cash a cheque? 
We will guard against that by watching his clubs and 
his bank. Raise funds on the necklace — if he has it? 
Merrington knows how to stop that by warning the pawn- 


3 j 6 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


brokers and jewellers. When he has done so he has the 
satisfaction of feeling that his man is cut off from sup- 
plies, wandering penniless in stony-hearted London, as 
helpless as a babe in the wood. Where will he hide? 
He is a West End man, knowing little of London out- 
side of Piccadilly, so the chances are that he will not 
get very far, and that his wanderings will end in sur- 
render or starvation. But Scotland Yard cannot wait 
for him to surrender, and Merrington, with an imagina- 
tion stimulated by the necessity of finding him, decides in 
favour of Islington — the so-called Merry Islington of 
obsequious London chroniclers, though, so far as my 
personal observation goes, its inhabitants are merry only 
when in liquor. Islington is congested, Islington con- 
tains criminals, and Islington is an ideal hiding-place. 
Therefore, says Merrington, let us seek our man there.” 

“ Oh, come, Mr. Colwyn, you don’t put me off like 
that. Somebody must have told you that I was out there 
to-day.” 

“ I saw you myself. As a matter of fact, I have been 
looking for Nepcote in that part of London — in an area 
between Farringdon Street and Euston.” 

“ Why there in particular? London is a wide field.” 

“ I have endeavoured to narrow it by considering the 
possibilities. The suburbs are unsafe, and so is the West 
End; the City affords no shelter for a fugitive. There 
remain the poorer congested areas, the docks, and the 
East End. But that does not help us very much, be- 
cause there is still a vast field left. What narrowed it 
considerably for me is my strong belief, taking all the 
circumstances into consideration, that Nepcote has not got 
very far from where we last saw him. What finally de- 
termined me to select Islington as a starting point for my 
search was that strange law of human gravitation which 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


317 


impels a fugitive to seek a criminal quarter for shelter. 
A hunted man seems to develop a keen scent for those 
who, like himself, are outside the law. Islington, as you 
are aware, has a large percentage of criminals in its 
population. At any rate, I am looking for Nepcote in 
Islington.” 

“ Although I could pick flaws in your theory, I am 
bound to say that you are right,” said Caldew. “ Nepcote 
is hiding in Islington. At least, we think so,” he 
cautiously added. 

“Good! How did you find out?” 

Caldew gave his companion particulars of the pawn- 
broker's visit to Scotland Yard that morning. 

“ I have been looking for Mr. Hobbs' marked shilling 
in the small shops between King’s Cross and Upper Street 
all the afternoon,” he said. “ I traced it quite by acci- 
dent after I had decided to give up the attempt. One 
of the uniformed men at the Angel happened to tell me, 
as a joke, about a coffeestall keeper who had gone to him 
in a fury that morning about a chance customer, who, in 
his own words, had diddled him for a bob overnight. He 
showed the policeman a shilling he had taken from the 
man, and was under the impression that it was a bad 
one because it was marked with a cross. The policeman 
put the coin in his pocket and gave the man another one 
to get rid of him. I obtained the shilling from him, and 
went to see the coffeestall keeper. His description of 
the man who passed it resembled Nepcote, and he added 
the information that the customer, after changing the 
shilling for a cup of coffee, had asked him where he could 
get a bed. The coffeestall keeper directed him to a cheap 
lodging-house near the Angel. I went *0 his lodging- 
house, and ascertained that a man answering to the de- 
scription had slept there last night, and on leaving this 


318 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


morning said that he would return there for a bed to- 
night. I have a policeman watching the place, and I 
am going out there shortly to see this chap — if he comes 
back. Do you care to go with me? ” 

“ I’ll go with pleasure,” said Colwyn, who had listened 
to this story with close attention. 

“ Then we’d better be getting along. But, I say, don’t 
mention this to Merrington if anything goes wrong and 
I don’t pull it off. The old man has his knife into me 
over this case, and my life wouldn’t be worth living if 
Nepcote slipped through our fingers again. I want to 
try and surprise him, and let him see that there are other 
men at Scotland Yard besides himself.” 

“ I don’t think you have much to fear from Merring- 
ton,” said Colwyn, laughing outright. “ He is in a chast- 
ened mood at present. But you can rely on my dis- 
cretion, and I hope you will get your man.” 

“ I believe I shall,” returned Caldew in a confident 
tone. “Shall we make a start?” 

Colwyn paid the bill, and they set out through the 
darkened streets, upon which a light autumn fog was 
descending. The Kingsway underground tramway 
carried them to the Angel , where they got off. Caldew 
threaded his way through the unwashed population of 
that centre, and turned into a side street where a swarm 
of draggle-tailed women were chaffering for decaying 
greens heaped on costers’ stalls in the middle of the 
road. He turned again into a narrower street running 
off this street market, and stopped when he got to the 
end of it. He nudged his companion, and pointed to a 
sign of “ Good Beds,” visible beneath a flare in a door- 
way opposite. 

“ That’s the place,” he said. 

A policeman came up to them, looming out of the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


319 


fog as suddenly as a spectre, and nodded to Caldew. 

“ Nothing doing,” he briefly announced. “ Eve 
watched the place ever since, but he hasn’t been in.” 

“All right,” said Caldew. “You can leave * it to me 
now. I shan’t need you any longer. Good night!” 

“ Good night, and good night to you, Mr. Colwyn,” 
the policeman responded, turning with a smile to the 
private detective. “ I didn’t recognize you at first be- 
cause of the fog. I didn’t know you were in this job.” 

“ And I hope that you won’t mention it, now that 
you do know,” interposed Caldew hastily. 

“ Not me. I’m not one of the talking sort.” The 
policeman nodded again in a friendly fashion, and dis- 
appeared down the side street. 

The two detectives stood there, watching, screened from 
passing observation in the deep doorway of an empty 
shop. The flare which swung in the doorway opposite 
permitted them to take stock of everybody who entered 
the lodging-house in quest of a bed. By its light they 
could even decipher beneath the large sign of “ Good 
Beds, Eightpence,” a smaller sign which added, “ Or 
Two Persons, a Shilling,” which, by its careful word- 
ing, seemed to hint that those entranced in Love’s young 
dream might seek the seclusion of the bowers within un- 
hindered by awkward questions of conventional morality, 
and, by its triumphant vindication of the time-worn senti- 
ment that love conquers all, tended to reassure democracy 
that the difference betwe’en West End hotels and Isling- 
ton lodging-houses was one of price only. 

But the visitors to the lodging-house that night sug- 
gested thraldom to less romantic tyrants than Cupid. 
Drink, disease and want were the masters of the ill-fa- 
voured men who shambled within at intervals, thrusting 
the price of a bed through a pigeon-hole at the entrance. 


320 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


receiving a dirty ticket in exchange. These transactions, 
and the faces of the frowzy lodgers were clearly visible 
to the watchers across the road, but none of the men 
resembled Nepcote. Shortly after ten o’clock raindrops 
began to fall sluggishly through the fog, and, as if that 
were the signal for closing, the figure of a man appeared 
in the lodging-house doorway and proceeded to extinguish 
the flare. 

“ We had better go over,” Caldew said. 

They walked across the oozing road, and he accosted 
the man in the doorway. 

“ You’re closing early to-night,” he observed. 

The man desisted fropi his occupation to stare at them. 
He was an ill-favoured specimen of an immortal soul, 
with a bloated face, a pendulous stomach, and a week’s 
growth of beard on his dirty chin. A short black pipe 
was thrust upside down in his mouth, and his attire con- 
sisted of a shirt open at the neck, a pair of trousers up- 
held by no visible support, and a pair of old slippers. 
Apparently satisfied from his prolonged inspection of 
the two visitors that they were not in search of lodgings, 
he replied in a surly tone: 

“What the hell’s that to do with you? If you let 
us know when you’re coming we’ll keep open all night 
— I don’t think.” 

Caldew pushed past him without deigning to parley, 
and opened a door adjoining the entrance pigeon-hole. 
A man was seated at the table within, reckoning the 
night’s takings by the light of a candle. It was strange 
to see one so near the grave counting coppers with such 
avid greed. His withered old face was long and yellow, 
and the prominent cheekbones and fallen cheeks gave it 
a coffinlike shape. His sunken little eyes were almost 
lost to view beneath bushy overhanging eyebrows, and 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


321 


from his shrunken mouth a single black tusk protruded 
upward, as though bent on reaching the tip of a long 
sharp nose. He started up from his accounts in fright 
as the door was flung open, and thrust a hand in a drawer 
near him, perhaps in quest of a weapon. Then he 
recognized Caldew, and smiled the propitiatory smile of 
one who had reason to fear the forces of authority. 

“ That chap you’re after didn’t turn up to-night,” he 
mumbled. 

“ You’re closing very early. He may come yet.” 

“ Tain’t no use if ’e do. ’E won’t get in. All my 
reg’lars is in, and I ain’t going to waste light waiting 
for a chance eightpence. P’r’aps you’d like to see the 
room where he slep’ last night ? ” 

Caldew nodded, and the lodging-house keeper, calling 
in the man they had seen closing the door, directed him 
to show the gentlemen the single room. The man lit 
a candle, and took the detectives upstairs to the top of 
the house. He opened the door of a very small and 
filthy room, with sloping ceiling and a broken window. 
A piece of dirty rag which had been hung across the 
window flapped noisily as the rain beat through the hole. 
The man held up the candle to enable the visitors to 
see the apartment to the greatest advantage. 

“ We charge tuppence more for this bedroom because 
it’s a single doss,” he said, not without a touch of pride 
in his tone. 

“ And well worth the money,” remarked Caldew. 

“ Look here, Mr. Funnysides, I didn’t bring you 

up here to listen to no sarcastical remarks,” retorted the 
man, with the sudden fury of a heavy drinker. “If 
you’ve seen enough, you’d better clear out. I want to 
get to bed.” 


/ 


322 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“You had better behave yourself if you don’t want 
to get into trouble,” counselled Caldew. 

“ So you’re a rozzer, are you ? D — d if I didn’t think 
so soon as I clapped eyes on you. But you’ve got noth- 
ing against me, so I don’t care a snap of my fingers for 
you. You’d better hurry up.” 

Caldew took no further notice of him, but joined 
Colwyn in examining the room. They found nothing 
giving any indication of its last tenant. The only articles 
in the room were a bed, a broken chair, and a beam of 
wood shoved diagonally against one of the walls, which 
threatened to fall in on the first windy night and bury 
the wretched bed and its occupant. After a brief search 
they turned away and went downstairs. The door was 
immediately slammed behind them, and the turning of 
the lock and the rattling of a chain told them that the 
place was closed for the night. 

Pulling up his coat collar in an effort to shield him- 
self from the persistence of the rain, Caldew expressed 
his disappointment at the failure of the night’s expedi- 
tion in a bitter jibe at his bad luck. At first he thought 
he would wait a little longer on the watch, then he 
changed his mind as he glanced at the unpromising night, 
and decided that it wasn’t worth while. He lived in 
Edgeware Road, so he shook hands with Colwyn and set 
out for the Underground at King’s Cross. 

Colwyn returned to the Angel to look for a taxi-cab. 
The fog was lifting, and crowds were emerging from 
the cinemas and a music-hall with the fatigued look of 
people who have paid in vain to be entertained. Outside 
the music-hall some taxi-cabs were waiting for the more 
opulent patrons of refined vaudeville who had been drawn 
within by the rare promise of an intellectual baboon, 
reputed to have the brains of a statesman, which shared 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 323 

the honours of “ the top of the bill ” with two charming 
sisters from a West End show. The drivers of the 
taxi-cabs said they were engaged, and uncivilly refused 
to drive the detective to Ludgate Circus. 

A Bermondsey omnibus came plunging through the 
fog, scattering the filth of the road on the hurrying pleas- 
ure-goers, and stopped at the corner to add to its grievous 
load of damp humanity. Those already in the darkened 
interior sat stiffly motionless, like corpses in a mortuary 
wagon, as the new-comers scrambled in, scattering mud 
and water over them, feeling for the overhead straps. 
Colwyn did not attempt to enter. Even a Smithfield 
tram-car would be better than the interior of a ’bus on a 
wet night. 

An ancient four-wheeler went past, crawling dejectedly 
homeward. The driver checked his gaunt horse at the 
sight of Colwyn standing on the kerb-stone, and raised 
an interrogative whip. He added a vocal appeal for 
hire based on the incredible assumption that a man must 
live, which he proclaimed with a whip elevated to the 
sodden heavens, calling on a God, invisible in the fog, to 
bear witness that he hadn’t turned a wheel that night. 
The phrasing of the appeal helped Colwyn to recall that 
it was the same cabman who had accosted Philip Here- 
dith and himself on the night they had motored to the 
moat-house. 

He engaged the cab and entered the dark interior. The 
whip which had been uplifted in pious aspiration fell in 
benedictory thanks on the bare ribs of the horse. The 
equipage jolted over the Angel crossing into the squalid 
precincts of St. John’s Street. In a short time the over- 
powering smell of slaughtered beasts announced the 
proximity of Smithfield. The cab turned down Charter- 
house Street towards Farringdon Market, and a little 


324 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


later pulled up under the archway at Ludgate Circus. 

“ I leaves it to you, sir,” said the cabman, in a husky 
whisper. His expectant palm closed rigidly on the silver 
coins, and his whip fell on the lean sides of his horse 
with a crack like a pistol shot as he wheeled round, leav- 
ing the detective standing in the road. 

The fog had almost cleared away, but the unlighted 
streets were plunged in deep gloom, through which groups 
of late wayfarers passed dimly and melted vaguely, like 
ghosts in the darkness of eternity. As Colwyn was about 
to enter the corridor leading to his chambers, a man 
brushed past him in the doorway. There was something 
about the figure which struck the detective as familiar, 
and he walked quickly after him. By the light of the 
departing cab he saw his face. It was Nepcote. 


CHAPTER XXV 


In that swift unexpected recognition Colwyn observed 
that the man for whom they had been searching looked 
pale and worn. He stood quite still in the doorway, 
his breath coming and going in quick gasps. 

“ We have been looking for you, Captain Nepcote,” 
Colwyn said. 

“ I am aware of that. I have been waiting to see you, 
but I could get nobody to answer my ring.” 

“ My man is out. You had better come upstairs to 
my rooms.” 

He led the way to the lift at the end of the corridor. 
When they reached the rooms Colwyn switched on the 
electric light. Nepcote dropped wearily into a chair, and 
for the first time Colwyn was able to see his face clearly. 

He looked very ill : there could be no doubt of that. 
His face was haggard and unshaven, his clothing was 
soiled, his attitude one of utter dejection. He crouched^ 
in the chair breathing hurriedly, with one hand pressed 
to his right side, as though in pain. Occasionally he 
coughed: a short, high-pitched cough, which made him 
wince. 

“ You had better drink this before you talk,” Colwyn 
said. 

He handed him a glass of brandy and water. Nepcote 
seized it eagerly and gulped it down. 

“ Eve caught a bad chill,” he said in a hoarse unnatural 
voice. “ I couldn’t carry on any longer. That’s why I 
came to see you to-night. But I’d given up hopes. I 
was ringing for some time.” 

325 


326 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ You came to surrender yourself ? ” 

“ Yes ; I am fed up — absolutely. I was a fool to 
bolt. Fve had a horrible time, sleeping out of doors 
and in verminous lodging-houses, with the police after 
me at every turn. I stuck it as long as I could, but to- 
day I was ill, and when I saw a policeman watching the 
lodging-house where I meant to sleep to-night I felt that 
I had to give in.” 

“ Why have you come to me instead of going to the 
police ? ” 

“ I thought I would get more consideration from you. 
I know you are searching for Mrs. Heredith’s necklace. 
Here it is.” 

He drew from his pocket a small parcel wrapped in 
dirty tissue paper, and put it on the table. The untidy 
folds fell apart, exposing the missing necklace, but the 
diamond was missing from the antique clasp. 

“ The diamond is in that,” he said, placing a small 
cardboard box beside the pearls. “ I wish I had never 
seen the cursed thing.” 

“ How do you come to have Mrs. Heredith’s necklace? ” 

Nepcote hesitated before replying. 

“ I was terribly upset by Mrs. Heredith’s death,” he 
said at length. “ I kne v w her before she married Phil 
Heredith. We were old friends.” 

The inconsequence of this statement convinced Colwyn 
that he was seeking time to frame an evasive answer. 

“If that is all you have to say it is useless to prolong 
this interview,” he coldly remarked. 

“I — I am going to tell you where I got the necklace,” 
Nepcote said, with downcast eyes. “ Mrs. Heredith gave 
it to me.” 

“Why did Mrs. Heredith give you her necklace?” 

“ She asked me to raise some money on it for her.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


327 


“For what purpose?” 

“ I cannot say. Pretty women always need money. 
It may have been for dress, or bridge, or old debts. She 
brought me the necklace one day, and asked me to get 
some money on it. I suggested that she should apply to 
her husband, but she said she needed some extra money, 
and she did not wish him to know.” 

“ And you complied with her request? ” 

“ I did, after she had pressed me several times. I am 
always a fool where women are concerned. I promised 
to raise money on the necklace in London for her. That 
was the beginning of my troubles. But who could have 
foreseen? How was I to know what was going to hap- 
pen ? ” 

He sat brooding for a space with gloomy eyes, like a 
man repelled by the menace of events, then burst out 
wildly : 

“ I’m in a horrible position. Who will believe me ? 
My God, what a fool I’ve been ! ” 

“ You are doing yourself no good by going on like 
this,” Colwyn said. “ You are keeping something back. 
My advice to you is to be quite frank with me and tell 
me everything.” 

“ You must give me a few minutes first to think it 
over,” responded Nepcote. He cast a doubtful glance at 
the detective, and relapsed into another brooding silence. 

“ Before you say anything more it is my duty to in- 
form you of my own connection with the case,” said 
Colwyn. “ There has been an arrest for the murder, as 
no doubt you are aware, but the family are not satisfied 
that the right person has been arrested. You are sus- 
pected.” 

“ Do they think that I murdered Violet? Oh, I never 
dreamt of this,” he added, as Colwyn remained silent. 


328 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ I thought that you and the police were searching for 
me because of the necklace. It is even worse than I 
thought. I will now tell you all. Perhaps you will then 
help me, for I am innocent.” 

Until that moment he had flung out his protestations 
with an excited impetuosity which told of a. mind suffer- 
ing under a grievous burden, though it was impossible 
to determine whether that state of feeling arose from 
anxiety or conscious guilt. His quietness now was in 
the oddest contrast. It was as though he had been 
sobered by his realization of the difficulty of convincing 
an outsider of his innocence of a foul crime in which he 
was deeply entangled by an appalling web of circum- 
stance. 

He began by explaining, vaguely enough, his past 
friendship with the murdered girl. He had first met her 
in London two years before. Their relations, as he 
depicted them, conveyed a common story of a casual ac- 
quaintance developed in the familiar atmosphere of 
secluded restaurants, with dances and theatres later on. 
His story of this phase had all the familiar elements 
which make up the setting of a modern sophisticated 
love episode, into which a man and a girl enter with 
their eyes open. In the masculine way, Nepcote refrained 
from saying anything which could hurt the dead girl’s 
reputation, but it was his reticence and reservations 
which completed the story for his listener. He said that 
their flirtation ceased when Violet became engaged to 
Philip Heredith. On his own showing he then acted 
sensibly enough in a delicate situation, and was after- 
wards reluctant to accept the invitation to the moat- 
house. With one of his reticent evasions he slurred over 
his reason for changing his mind, but Colwyn guessed 
that it was due to the feminine disinclination to bury an 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


329 

old romance. Violet had probably written and asked him 
to come. 

He conveyed to Colwyn a picture of the state of things 
existing at the moat-house when he arrived. It was 
an unconscious revelation on his part of a giddy shallow 
girl hastily marrying a wealthy young man for his money, 
quickly bored by the dull decorum of English country 
life, sighing for her former existence — for the gay dis- 
tractions of her irresponsible London days. It seemed 
that in this frame .of mind she welcomed Nepcote as a 
dear link with the past, and sought his society with a 
frequency which had its embarrassments. Of coilrse 
there was nothing in it — Nepcote was fiercely insistent 
on that — she was bored, poor girl, and liked to talk 
about old times with her old friend, but it was awkward, 
devilish awkward, in a country house full of idle people 
and curious servants with nothing to do but use their 
eyes. 

She had taken him aside to tell him of her little troubles. 
Miss Heredith did not think her good enough for Phil — 
she was sure she thought that. They had the vicar and 
old f rumps in to tea, and she had to listen to their piffle. 
They all went to bed soon after ten — just when people 
were beginning to wake up in London and go out for the 
night. And she had to go to church on Sunday because 
it was expected of her, did he ever hear of such rot — and 
so on. It seemed that everything in her life bored her. 
Of course Phil worshipped her, but that didn’t help her 
much. How could it, Nepcote asked, fixing his burning 
glance on his listener, when she had only married him for 
his coin ? 

It appeared he had given her such counsel as his 
worldly experience suggested. He told her to get Phil 
to take her up to London now and again for a change. 


330 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


He advised her to stand no nonsense from anybody, 
pointing out to her that she was the future Lady Here- 
dith, and, within limits, could do practically what she 
liked. 

These intimate details of the confidences between them 
brought Nepcote to the vital point of his possession of the 
necklace. He now admitted that his former story was 
untrue. The actual truth was that he had needed some 
money badly for his gambling debts. He told Violet 
of his position, and asked her had she any money to lend 
him. She had not, and rather than ask Phil, she had, 
for old friendship’s sake, offered him her necklace to 
raise money on, or to sell outright the diamond in the 
clasp. He accepted her offer, and went up to London 
on the following day to try and sell the diamond. 
Wendover’s card had been given to him by a brother 
officer in France as that of a man who gave a good price 
for jewels without asking too many questions. But the 
diamond merchant had not lived up to his reputation. 
He had refused to look at the diamond. He had been 
horribly rude, treating him as though he was a pick- 
pocket, and had practically ordered him out of his office. 
In fact, his whole attitude was so suspicious that Nepcote 
decided it would be better to leave his gambling debts 
owing than run the risk of trying to raise money on a 
married woman’s jewels. He returned to the moat-house, 
leaving the necklace locked in his desk at his flat. 

At this point Nepcote ceased speaking again, inter- 
rupted by a paroxysm of coughing, and when it passed 
his eyes turned towards the window, as though he were 
listening to the gentle patter of rain on the panes. For 
a space the two men sat with no sound in the room ex- 
cept Nepcote’s laboured breathing. When he did re- 
sume he spoke with a quickened emphasis, like a man 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


33i 


aware that he was entering upon the part of his narra- 
tive most incredible of belief. 

“ It happened three nights later,” he said. “ I was 
in my room writing some letters before retiring, when 
I heard a light and hurried tap at my door. When I 
opened it Violet was standing there. She stepped quickly 
inside. Before I could express my opinion of her reck- 
less foolishness she burst into passionate sobs and re- 
proaches. It was all my fault — that was the burden of 
her reproach between her sobs. It was some time be- 
fore I could get* out of her what was wrong. Then she 
told me that Sir Philip had asked her to wear the neck- 
lace at some dance we were to attend on the next night. 
It was then that I learnt that the necklace had been 
given to Violet by Sir Philip as a wedding present. 
Violet attached such little* value to the gift that she had 
given the necklace to me, thinking it would not be missed, 
but she had found out her mistake that night. It was in 
the presence of Phil and Miss Heredith that Sir Philip 
had asked her to wear it. Violet tried to get out of it 
by saying that the pearls were dull and the necklace 
wanted resetting. On hearing this Miss Heredith had 
gone out of the room and returned with Mr. Musard, 
an old family friend who had arrived that day on a short 
visit. He is a connoisseur in jewels, and Miss Heredith 
asked his advice about the necklace. Musard told her 
that the pearls had long needed some treatment technically 
known as “ skinning,” and he offered to take the necklace 
to London two days later and get it done by an expert. 
Violet accepted the offer, and then promised Sir Philip 
that she would wear the necklace at the party. 

“ She slipped upstairs to see me as soon as she dared. 
She was greatly relieved when she learnt that I had not 
parted with the necklace, and she wanted me to go up 


332 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


to London and bring it back so that she could wear it to 
the party. I was willing to do so, but I doubted whether 
I would be able to get back in time. The local train 
service had been restricted on account of the war, and 
the only train I could catch back did not reach Heredith 
until half-past seven. 

“ It was Violet who hit on the plan. The big thing — 
the vital thing for her, she pointed out, was to have the 
necklace in time to give to Musard before he went to 
London. She said she could easily get out of going to 
the dance by pretending to have one of her bad head- 
aches, and she did not wish to meet Mrs. Weyne again. 
Her idea was that I should pretend I had been recalled 
to France, delay my departure until the afternoon train 
to prevent suspicion, and return secretly with the neck- 
lace. She said that the afternoon train reached London 
at twenty-five minutes past five, which would give me 
thirty-five minutes to take a taxi to my flat, get the neck- 
lace, and catch the return express at six o’clock. I was 
to leave the train at Weydene Junction, where nobody 
was likely to recognize me, and walk across country to 
the moat-house. She expected that by the time I reached 
the house the others would have left for the Weynes, so 
the coast would be clear. I was to enter the house by 
a little unused door at the back of the left wing which 
she would leave unlocked for me, and wait at the foot 
of the staircase until she came down. 

“ I did not like this plan because of the risk, but Violet 
grew almost hysterical when I objected to it. She said 
there was no danger, and it was her only chance of safety. 
She believed that Phil suspected something, because he 
had looked at her strangely when they were talking about 
the necklace downstairs. I put that down to nervous- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


333 


ness on her part, but I realized she must have the neck- 
lace, so I gave in, and said I would do as she wished. 
I have since bitterly regretted that I did not go openly 
to London and back, even at the risk of a little idle 
curiosity. 

“ I announced my recall and departure next morning 
at the breakfast table, and returned to London by the 
afternoon train. I drove to Sherryman Street, got the 
necklace, and returned to Victoria just in time to catch 
the six o'clock express. I left the train at Weydene, and 
walked across the fields to the moat-house. It was quite 
dark when I reached there. I crossed the back bridge 
over the moat and went to the door in the left wing, as 
we had arranged. To my surprise it was locked. 

“ I waited outside the door expecting Violet to come 
down. Everything was silent, so I thought the others 
must have started for the dance. But the time went on, 
and nobody came. Then I decided to creep round the 
side of the wing and see if there was a light in Violet’s 
bedroom. At that moment I heard a loud scream from 
somewhere upstairs, followed by a deafening report. 

“ I had no idea what had happened, but I knew that 
I must not be found there, so I slipped back the way I 
had come. I ran along the outside of the moat wall, 
making for the wood in front of the house. As I passed 
Violet’s window I looked up, and it was in darkness. 
I suppose that was why I did not connect the shot or the 
scream with her. 

“ I plunged through the woods till I came to the car- 
riage drive. From there the front of the moat-house was 
visible to me. I could see lights flashing, and people 
moving hurriedly about. After I had stood there for 
some time I saw a man hurrying across the moat-house 


334 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


bridge in my direction, so I went back into the wood and 
hid behind a tree. The man stopped as he walked along 
the carriage drive, and looked towards the tree where I 
was crouching. He called out ‘ Who is there ? ’ I recog- 
nized his voice. It was Tufnell, the butler. I thought 
I was discovered, and crept into some undergrowth, but 
in a moment he walked on. 

“ I remained hidden in the undergrowth for some time 
— an hour or more. Once I heard footsteps crunching 
on the gravel-path, then all was silent again. After wait- 
ing for some time longer I decided to walk back to Wey- 
dene and return to London. But I made such a wide 
detour for fear of being seen that I lost my way, and it 
was nearly midnight when I found myself at Rainchester, 
on the main line, just in time to catch the last train to 
London. 

“ It was a terrible shock to me when I opened my paper 
the next morning and read about poor Violet’s murder. 
I had never thought of anything like that. At first I 
could think of nothing but her terrible end, but then it 
occurred to me that my own position would be awkward 
if the loss of the necklace was discovered. As the papers 
said nothing about the necklace I concluded that it had 
not been missed. But I knew the police would be search- 
ing for clues, and might discover the loss at any mo- 
ment. I knew it was dangerous for me to keep it in my 
possession, so I decided to get rid of it without de- 
lay. 

“ I thought at first of returning it anonymously, but I 
immediately abandoned that idea as too dangerous. Then 
I thought of dropping it into the river. It occurred to 
me, however, that if by any chance the police, discovered 
that the necklace had been given to me, and I couldn’t 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


335 


produce it if I were questioned, I should be in a worse 
fix still. So I tried to think of a safe hiding-place 
where I could lay my hands on it in case of necessity. 
I could think of none. Time went on, and before I had 
decided what to do with the thing my man came along 
and said it was time to catch the boat train. So in the 
end I put the necklace into my pocket and took it to 
France with me. It seemed as safe there as anywhere 
else for the time being. 

“ I was only going to the base, so I saw the London 
papers every day. I was very relieved when I read of 
the arrest of Hazel Rath for the murder. I returned to 
London feeling reasonably safe, though it seemed strange 
to me that the loss of the necklace had not been dis- 
covered. 

“ I thought everything was found out when you and 
that Scotland Yard detectives visited my flat. But Mer- 
rington seemed to have no suspicions of me, and I was 
just beginning to think I was finally safe when he re- 
marked that the police knew of the missing necklace. I 
started, and that gave me away to you, at all events. I 
saw you glance at Wendover’s card as it fell on the 
table, and I knew that you suspected me. 

“After you had both left I had a bad half-hour. I 
could see I was in a dangerous fix. You were aware of 
the address of the diamond merchant to whom I had 
gone, and who, no doubt, would be able to identify me. 
I had made my own position worse by lying about the 
War Office telegram, as could easily be proved. There 
was also the possibility that the police might find out 
about my return to Heredith on the night of the murder. 
I did not then see what all these facts portended for me, 
though I do now. But I feared arrest for the theft of 


336 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


the necklace, with the alternatives of imprisonment if I 
kept silent, or facing a horrible scandal if I told the truth. 
I was not prepared for either. 

“ I slept at an hotel that night because I feared ar- 
rest, but next morning, early*. I returned to the flat to 
exchange my khaki for a civilian suit. After thinking 
over things during the night I had come to the conclu- 
sion that I had most to fear from you, and I decided to 
watch you. If you did not visit Wendover’s place dur- 
ing the day it seemed to me that I might be alarming 
myself needlessly. You know what happened. I bolted 
when I saw you emerge from the buildings, and wan- 
dered about for hours, not knowing what was best to do. 
When I discovered that I had no money — nothing in my 
pockets except that cursed necklace, which I had taken 
with me because I knew the flat would be searched — I 
decided to return to the flat for the money I had left be- 
hind in my other clothes. I was too late. When I 
reached Sherryman Street I saw two men watching the 
flat from the garden of the square opposite, and I knew 
I would be arrested if I went inside. 

“What’s the use of talking about what followed? 
I hadn’t the ghost of a show from the start. Do you 
think you know anything about London? Believe me, 
you don’t until you have been cast adrift in it with empty 
pockets. It’s a city of vampires and stony hearts, a seeth- 
ing inhuman hell where you can wander till you drop and 
die without anyone giving a pitying glance — much less 
a helping hand. Even a man’s guardian angel deserts 
him. It doesn’t take a man very long to get to the gutter, 
to fall lower and lower until there’s nothing but the 
Thames Embankment or the mortuary in front of him. 
I’ve had my eyes opened — I’ve talked to some of these 
poor devils in this Christian city. But what’s the good of 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


337 


telling you this? Tve been down to the gutter myself the 
last few days, falling each day to lower depths, tramping 
hungry and footsore in the midst of herds of respectable 
human brutes, slinking away from the eye of every police- 
man, pawning clothes for the price of a verminous bed, to 
lie awake all night knowing that I would be murdered by 
the vulture-faced degenerates sleeping in the same hovel, 
if they had caught a glimpse of the necklace. 

“ How many wild schemes have I planned in the night 
for raising money on the necklace in the morning! 
Once I went into a pawnshop, but the pawnbroker’s eyes 
glittered when I spoke of pearls, and I got away as 
quickly as I could. I suppose there was a reward, and 
he was on the look out for me. One way and another 
I have been through hell. I feel like a man in a fever. 
I was drenched through yesterday, and I’ve had no food 
for twenty- four hours.” 

He ceased, and sat staring into vacancy as though 
he were again passing through the horror of his wan- 
derings. Then another fit of coughing seized him, pro- 
longed and violent. When it had subsided he looked at 
Colwyn with bloodshot eyes. 

“ I feel pretty bad,” he said weakly. 

That fact had been apparent to the detective for some 
time past. Nepcote’s frequent fits of coughing and a pe- 
culiar nasal intensity of utterance suggested symptoms 
of pneumonia. As Colwyn lifted the telephone receiver 
to summon a doctor, the thought occurred to him that, 
if the immediate problem of the disposal of Nepcote had 
been settled by his illness, his inability to answer ques- 
tions necessitated his own return to the moat-house with- 
out delay. In any case, that course was inevitable after 
what he had just heard. It was only at the place where 
the murder had been committed that he could hope to 


338 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


judge between the probabilities of Nepcote’s strange story 
and Hazel Rath’s confession. It was there, unless he was 
very much mistaken, that the final solution of the Here- 
dith mystery must be sought. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


It was late afternoon when Colwyn reached Heredith 
the following day. The brief English summer, dying 
under the intolerable doom of evanescence for all things 
beautiful, presented the spectacle of creeping decay in 
a hectic flare of russet and crimson, like a withered 
woman striving to stave off the inevitable with pitiful 
dyes and rouge. 

In this scene the moat-house was in perfect harmony, 
attuned by its own decrepitude to the general dissolution 
of its surroundings. Its aspect was a shuttered front of 
sightlessness, a brick and stone blindness to the changes 
of the seasons and the futility of existence. The ter- 
raced gardens had put on the death tints of autumn, but 
the house showed an aged indifference to the tricks of 
enslaved nature at the bidding of creation. 

Colwyn’s ring at the door was answered by Milly 
Saker, whose rustic stare at the sight of him was fol- 
lowed by an equally broad grin of recognition. She ush- 
ered him into the hall, and went in search of Miss Here- 
dith. In a moment or two Miss Heredith appeared. 
She looked worn and ill, but she greeted Colwyn with 
a gracious smile and a firm handshake, and took him 
to the library. Refreshments were brought in, and while 
Colwyn sipped a glass of wine his hostess uttered the 
opening conversational commonplaces of an English lady. 
Had he a pleasant journey down? The roads were very 
good for motoring at that time of year, and the country 
was looking beautiful. Many people thought it was the 
339 


340 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


best time for seeing the country. It was a fine autumn, 
but the local farmers thought the signs pointed to a hard 
winter. Thus she chatted, until the glass of sherry was 
finished. Then she lapsed into silence, with a certain ex- 
pectancy in her mild glance, as though waiting for Col- 
wyn to announce the object of his visit. 

“ I presume you have come down to see Phil ? ” she 
said, as Colwyn did not speak. “ Unfortunately he is not 
at home, ,, she went on, answering her own question in 
the feminine manner. “ He has gone to Devon with Mr. 
Musard for a few days. It was my idea. I wanted him 
taken out of himself. He is moping terribly, and of 
course that is bad for him. I hope to persuade him to 
go with Vincent for a complete change when this — 
this terrible business is finished.” Again her eye sought 
his. 

“ When do you expect them to return ? ” 

“ To-morrow night. Phil would not stay away longer, 
He has been expecting to hear from you. Can you stay 
till then?” 

“ Quite easily. In fact, I came down prepared to stop 
for a day or so. I have some further inquiries to make 
which will occupy me during that time.” 

“ Then of course you will stay with us, Mr. Colwyn.” 

“ You are very kind, but I do not wish to trouble 
you. I have engaged a room at the inn.” 

“ It is no trouble. I will send down a man for your 
things. Phil would not like you to stay at the inn — 
neither should I.” Miss Heredith rose as she spoke. 
“ Please do whatever you wish, Mr. Colwyn. I quite 
understand that you have work to do, and wish to be 
alone.” 

“ Thank you. Then I shall stay.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


34i 


Colwyn sat for a while after she had left him, forming 
his plans. He was grateful to her for a tact which had 
not transgressed beyond the limits of unspoken thought 
during their brief interview, but he was more pleased with 
the fortuitous absence of Phil and Musard at that period 
of his investigations. He welcomed the opportunity of 
working unquestioned, because he was not prepared to 
disclose the statements of Nepcote and Hazel Rath to 
any of the inmates of the moat-house until he had tested 
the feasibility of both stories in the setting of the crime. 

“ It has all turned out very fortunately, so far,” was 
the thought which arose in his mind. “ And now — to 
work.” 

He glanced at his watch. It was nearly four o’clock. 
His immediate plans were a walk to Weydene, and an- 
other observation of the bedroom which Mrs. Heredith 
had occupied in the left wing. He decided to leave his in- 
vestigation of the room until later so as to have the ad- 
vantage of the waning daylight in his walk across the 
fields. 

When he returned to the moat-house it was dark, and 
on the stroke of the dinner hour. That meal he took 
with Sir Philip and Miss Heredith in the faded state 
of the big dining-room — three decorous figures at a 
brightly lit oasis of snowy linen and silver, with the 
sober black of Tufnell in the background. Sir Philip 
greeted Colwyn with his tired smile of welcome. He 
seemed somewhat frailer, but quite animated as he pressed 
a special claret on his guest and told him, like a child 
telling of a promised treat, that he was dining out the 
following night. He insisted on giving the wonderful 
news in detail. He had yielded to the solicitations of an 
old friend — Lord Granger, the ambassador, who had just 


342 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


returned to Granger Park after five years’ absence from 
England, and would take no denial. But it was Alethea’s 
doing — she had arranged it all. 

“ I’m going to put back the clock of Time,” he said, 
with a feeble chuckle. “ Put the hands right back.” 

“ I think it will do him good, don’t you, Mr. Colwyn? ” 
said Miss Heredith with a wistful smile. 

“ I have no doubt of it,” said Colwyn with an answer- 
ing smile. “A meeting with an old friend is always a 
good thing. Are you going with Sir Philip ? ” 

“ Oh, yes. I wouldn’t go without her,” said the bar- 
onet, with the helpless look of senility. “ You’re going, 
aren’t you, Althea ? ” 

“ Of course, Philip,” was the gentle response. 

This conversation, slight and desultory as it was, gave 
sufficient indication to the detective of the heavy burden 
Miss Heredith was bearing. The baronet could talk of 
nothing else during the remainder of the dinner, and 
when the meal was finished he begged his guest to ex- 
cuse him as he wished to obtain a good night’s rest to 
fortify him against the excitement of the coming outing. 
With an apologetic smile at Colwyn his sister followed 
him from the room. 

The old butler busied himself at the sideboard as Col- 
wyn remained seated at the table sipping his wine. His 
movements were so deliberate as to convey a suspicion 
that he was in no hurry to leave the room, and the glances 
he shot at Colwyn whenever he moved out of the range of 
his vision carried with them the additional suggestion that 
the detective was the unconscious cause, of his slowness. 
More than once, after these backward glances, he opened 
his lips as though to speak, but did not do so. It was 
Colwyn who broke the silence. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


343 


“ Tufnell ! ” he said. 

“Yes, sir?” The butler deposited a dish on the side- 
board and stepped quickly to the detective's chair. 

“ I want to ask you a question or two. It was you 
who found the back door of the left wing unlocked 
on the night of the murder, was it not? ” 

The butler gravely bowed, but did not speak. 

“ What made you try the door ? Did you suspect 
that it was unlocked? ” 

“No; it was just chance that caused me to turn the 
handle. I’m so used to locking up the house at nights 
that I did it without thinking. I certainly never ex- 
pected to find it unlocked, and the key in the inside of 
the door. That was quite a surprise to me. I have 
often wondered since who could have unlocked it and 
left the key in the door.” 

“ You told me last time I was here that this door is 
usually locked and the key kept in the housekeeper's 
apartments. I suppose there is no doubt about that ? ” 

“ Not the least, sir. The key is hanging there now 
with a lot of others. Nobody ever thinks of using the 
door. That is why I was so astonished to find it open 
that night.” 

“ If the key was hanging with a number of others 
it might have been taken some time before and not 
be missed ? ” 

“ That’s just it, sir. It might not have been missed 
by now if I had not discovered it that night.” 

“What time was it when you found it?” 

“ Shortly before six o’clock — getting dusk, but not 
dark.” 

“ You are quite sure you locked the door after finding 
it open ? ” 


344 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ There can be no doubt of that, sir. The lock was 
stiff to turn, and I tried the handle of the door to make 
sure that I had locked it properly.” 

“ Did you return the key to the housekeeper’s apart- 
ments immediately ? ” 

“ I intended to return it after dinner, but I forgot all 
about it in the excitement and confusion. It was still 
in my pocket when I informed Mr. Musard about it.” 

“ Here is another question, Tufnell, and I want you 
to think well before answering it. Do you think it 
would have been possible for anybody to enter the 
house and gain the left wing unobserved while the house- 
hold was at dinner that night ? ” 

“ I have asked myself that question several times since, 
sir — feeling a certain amount of responsibility. It 
would have been difficult, because the windows of the 
downstairs bedrooms of the left wing were all locked. 
There was always the chance of some of the servants 
seeing anybody crossing the hall on the way to the stair- 
case, unless the — person watched and waited for an 
opportunity.” 

Colwyn nodded as though dismissing the subject, but 
the butler lingered. Perhaps it was his realization of 
the implication of his last words which gave him the 
courage to broach the matter which had been occupying 
his mind. 

“ Might I ask you a question, sir?” he hesitatingly 
commenced. 

“ What is it?” 

“ It’s about the young woman who has been arrested, 
sir. Is there any likelihood that she will be proved inno- 
cent ? ” 

“You must have some particular reason for asking 
me that question, Tufnell.” 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 345 

“ Well, sir, I am aware that Mr. Philip thinks her 
innocent.” 

“ So you told me when I was down here before, but 
that is not the reason for your question. You had better 
be frank.” 

“ I wish to be frank, sir, but I am in a difficulty. I 
have learnt something which seems to have a bearing 
on this young woman’s position, which I think you 
ought to know, but I have to consider my duty to 
the family. It was something — something I over- 
heard.” 

“If it throws the slightest light on this crime it is 
your duty to reveal it,” the detective responded gravely. 
“You are aware that I have been called into the case 
by Mr. Heredith because he is not convinced of Hazel 
Rath’s guilt.” 

“ Quite so, sir. For that reason I have been trying to 
make up my mind to confide in you. When you have 
heard what I have to say you will understand how hard 
it is. It relates to Mr. Philip, sir. Since his illness 
I have been worried about his health, because he is so 
changed that I feared he might go mad with grief. He 
hardly speaks a word to anybody, but sometimes I have 
seen him muttering to himself. The night before he 
went away with Mr. Musard he did not come down 
to dinner. Miss Heredith was going to send a servant 
to his room in case he had not heard the gong, but I 
offered to go myself. When I reached his bedroom, I 
heard the most awful sobbing possible to imagine. Then, 
through the partly open door, I heard Mr. Philip call 
on God Almighty to make somebody suffer as he had 
suffered. He mentioned a name — ” 

“ Whose name ? ” 

The butler looked fearfully towards the closed door, 


346 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


as though he suspected eavesdroppers, and then brought 
it out with an effort: 

“ Captain Nepcote, sir.” 

Colwyn had expected that name. Nepcote’s statement 
on the previous night had led him to believe that Philip 
Heredith had suspected Nepcote’s relations with his wife, 
but could not bring himself to disclose that when he 
sought assistance. It was Colwyn’s experience that noth- 
ing was so rare as complete frankness from people who 
came to him for help. It was part of the ingrained 
reserve of the English mind, the sensitive dread of gossip 
or scandal, to keep something back at such moments. 
The average person was so swaddled by limitations of 
intelligence as to be incapable of understanding that 
suppressed facts were bound to come to light sooner or 
later if they affected the matter of the partial confidence. 
Of course, there was sometimes the alternative of a 
reticence which was intended to mislead. If that en- 
tered into the present case it was an additional complica- 
tion. 

“ What interpretation did you place on these over- 
heard words ? ” he asked the butler. “ Did you suppose 
that they referred to the murder ? ” 

“ Well, sir — ” the butler hesitated, as if at a loss to 
express himself. “ It was not for me to draw conclu- 
sions, sir, but I could not help thinking over what I 
had heard. I know Mr. Philip believed the young 
woman to be innocent, and — Mrs. Heredith was shot 
with Captain Nepcote’s revolver.” 

“I see. You had no other thought in your mind?” 

“ No, sir. What else could I think?” 

The butler’s meek tones conveyed such an inflection 
of surprise that Colwyn was convinced that he, at all 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


347 

events, had no suspicion of the secret between Mrs. 
Heredith and Nepcote. 

“ Your confidence is quite safe with me, Tufnell,’ , 
the detective added after a pause. “ But I cannot an- 
swer your question at present. ,, 

“ Very well, sir.” The butler turned to the sideboard 
again without further remark, and left the dining-room 
a few minutes later. 

Colwyn went to his room shortly afterwards, and 
occupied himself for a couple of hours in going through 
his notes of the case. It was his intention to defer his 
visit to the bedroom in the left wing until the household 
had retired, so as to be free from the curious speculations 
and tittle-tattle of the servants. 

The moat-house kept country hours, and when he had 
finished his writing and descended from his room he 
found the ground floor in darkness. A clock somewhere 
in the stillness chimed solemnly as he walked swiftly 
across the hall. ' Its strokes finished proclaiming the hour 
of eleven as he mounted the staircase of the left wing. 

The loneliness of the deserted wing was like a moving 
shuddering thing in the desolation of the silence and 
the darkness. It was as though the echoing corridor 
and the empty rooms were whispering, with the appeal 
of . the forgotten, for friendly human companionship 
and light to disperse the horror of sinister shapes and 
brooding shadows which lurked in the abode of murder. 
Colwyn entered the bedroom where Mrs. Heredith had 
been murdered, and by the ray of his electric torch crossed 
to the bedside and switched on the light. 

He stood there motionless for a while, trying to pic- 
ture the manner and the method of the murder. If Hazel 
Rath had spoken the truth, the murderer had stood where 


348 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


he was now standing when the girl entered the room in 
the darkness. Had the light from the corridor, streaming 
through the open door, revealed her approaching figure 
to him? How long had he been there in the darkness, 
waiting for the moment to kill the woman on the bed? 

If Nepcote was the murderer he must have entered 
almost immediately before, because he could not have 
reached the moat-house until nearly half-past seven, and 
the shot was fired at twenty minutes to eight. How had 
he known that Mrs. Heredith was there alone, in the 
darkness? A secret assignation might have been the 
explanation if the time had been after, instead of be- 
fore the household's departure for the evening. But 
even the most wanton pair of lovers would hesitate to 
indulge their passion while the risk of chance discovery 
and exposure was so great. 

As he pondered over the two stories Colwyn did not 
attempt to shut his eyes to the fact that Hazel, on her 
own showing, fitted into the crime more completely than 
Nepcote. She had ample opportunities to slip into the 
room and murder the woman who had supplanted her. 
She had really strengthened the case against herself by the 
damaging admission that she had sought Mrs. Heredith’s 
room in secret just before the crime was committed. 
Her explanation of the scream and the shot was so im- 
probable as to sound incredible. It was not to be won- 
dered that Scotland Yard preferred to believe that it was 
the apparition of the frantic girl, revolver in hand, which 
had caused her affrighted victim to utter one wild scream 
before the shot was fired which ended her life. 

But Colwyn had never allowed himself to be swayed 
too much by circumstance. Appearances were not al- 
ways a safe guide in the complicated tangle of human af- 
fairs. Things were forever happening which left ex- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


349 


perience wide-eyed with astonishment. The contradic- 
tions of human nature persisted in all human acts. In 
this moat-house mystery, the grimmest paradox of his 
brilliant career, Colwyn was determined not to accept the 
presumption of the facts until he had satisfied himself 
that no other interpretation was possible. His subtle 
mind had been challenged by a finger-post of doubt in 
the written evidence ; a finger-post so faint as to be 
passed unnoticed by other eyes, but sufficiently warning 
to his clearer vision to cause him to pause midway in the 
broad track of circumstantial evidence and look around 
him for a concealed path. 

It was the point he had mentioned to Caldew at his 
chambers after reading the copy of the coroner’s deposi- 
tions which Merrington had lent him. While perusing 
them he had been struck by a curious fact. The medical 
evidence stated that the cause of death was a small punc- 
tured wound not larger than a threepenny piece, but 
added the information that the hole in the gown of the 
dead woman was much larger, about the diameter of a 
half-crown. The Government pathologist had formed 
the opinion that the revolver must have been held very 
close to the body to account for the larger scorched hole. 
That inference was obvious, but Colwyn saw more in the 
two holes than that. It seemed to him that the live ring 
of flame caused by the close-range shot must have been 
extinguished by the murderer, or it would have continued 
to smoulder and expand in an ever-widening circle. And 
that thought led to another of much greater significance. 
The shot had been fired at close range to ensure accuracy 
of aim or deaden the sound of the report. But, which- 
ever the murderer’s intention, the second purpose had 
been achieved, intentionally or unintentionally. How 
had it happened, then, that the sound of the report had 
penetrated so loudly downstairs? 


350 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


As Colwyn moved about the room, examining every- 
thing with his quick appraising eye, he noticed that the 
position of the bed had been changed since he last saw it 
The head was a trifle askew, and nearer to the side of 
the wall than the foot. The difference was slight, but 
Colwyn could see a portion of the fireplace which had 
not been visible before. The bed stood almost in the 
centre of the room, the foot in line with the door, and 
the head about three or four feet from the chimney-piece. 
In noting this rather unusual position during his last 
visit, Colwyn had formed the conclusion that it had been 
chosen for the benefit of fresh air and light during the 
summer months, as the window, which looked over the 
terraced gardens, was nearer that end of the room. 

Colwyn approached the head of the bed and bent down 
to examine the bedposts. A slight groove in the deep 
pile carpet showed clearly enough that the bed had been 
pushed back a few inches. The change in position was 
so trifling that it might have been attributed to the act 
of a servant in sweeping the room if a closer examination 
had not revealed the continuance of the groove under 
the bed. The inference was unmistakable: the bed, in 
the first instance, had been pushed much farther back 
on its castors, and then almost, but not quite, restored 
to its original position. 

Had the bed been moved to gain access to the fireplace? 
He could see no reason for such a proceeding. It was 
too early in the autumn to need fires, and the room had 
not been occupied since the murder. In any case, the ap- 
pearance of the grate showed that no fire had been lit. 
There was ample space to pass between the head of the 
bed and the fireplace, though perhaps not much room 
for movement. On his last visit Colwyn had looked into 
this space to test its possibilities of concealment. In the 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


351 

quickened interest of his new discovery he pushed the 
bed out of the way and examined it again. 

The first thing that caught his eye was a scratch on the 
polished surface of the register grate. It looked to be 
of recent origin, and for that reason suggested to 
Colwyn’s mind that the bed had been moved by some- 
body who wanted more room in front of the grate. For 
what purpose? He turned his attention to the grate 
itself in the hope of obtaining an answer to that ques- 
tion. 

The grate was empty, and in the housewifely way a 
sheet of white paper had been laid on the bottom bars 
to catch occasional flakes of soot from the chimney. 
But there were no burnt papers or charred fragments to 
suggest that the grate had recently been used. Dissatis- 
fied and perlexed, Colwyn was about to rise to his feet 
when it chanced that his eyes, glancing into a corner, 
lighted on something tiny and metallic in the crevice be- 
tween the white paper and the side bars of the grate. 
Wondering what it was, he succeeded in getting it out 
with his finger and thumb. It was a percussion cap. 

This discovery, strange as it was, seemed at first sight 
far enough removed from the circumstances of the mur- 
der, except so far as it brought the thought of lethal 
weapons to the imagination. But a weapon which re- 
quired a percussion cap for its discharge had nothing to 
do with Violet Heredith’s death. She had been killed 
by a bullet which fitted Nepcote’s revolver, which was 
a pinfire weapon. The medical evidence had established 
that fact beyond the shadow of a doubt. Moreover, the 
percussion cap was unexploded, which seemed to make 
its presence in the grate even more difficult of explanation. 
It looked as though it had been dropped accidentally, but 
how came it to be there at all? The strangeness of the 


352 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


discovery was intensified by the knowledge that percus- 
sion caps and muzzle-loading weapons had become an- 
tiquated with the advent of the breech-loader. Who used 
such things nowadays? 

By the prompting of that mysterious association of 
ideas which is called memory, Colwyn was reminded of 
his earlier visit to the gun-room downstairs, and Mus- 
ard’s statement about the famous pair of pistols in the 
brass-bound mahogany box, which “ carried as true as a 
rifle up to fifty yards, but had a heavy recoil. ,, They 
belonged to the period between breech-loaders and the 
ancient flint-locks, and were probably muzzle-loaders. 
With that sudden recollection, Colwyn also recalled that 
Musard had been unable to show him the pistols because 
the key of the case had been mislaid or lost. 

This incident, insignificant as it had appeared at the 
time, seemed hardly to gain in importance when consid- 
ered in conjunction with the discovery of the cap in 
the grate. Apart from the stimulus to memory the per- 
cussion cap had produced, there was no visible co-ordina- 
tion between the two facts, because it was, apparently, 
quite certain that Mrs. Heredith had been shot by Nep- 
cote’s revolver, and by no other weapon. But the balance 
of probabilities in crime are sometimes turned by ap- 
parently irrelevant trifles which assume importance on 
investigation. Was it possible that the key of the pistol- 
case had been deliberately concealed because the box had 
something to hide which formed a connection between 
the pistols and the presence of the cap in the grate? 
That inference could only be tested by an examination 
of the case of pistols. The experiment was undoubtedly 
worth trying. Colwyn left the room and descended the 
stairs. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


The gun-room was dark and silent as a vault. In 
the deep recesses the armoured phantoms of dead and 
gone Herediths seemed to be watching the intruder with 
hidden eyes behind the bars of their tilting helmets and 
visored salades. The light of Colwyn’s electric torch 
fell on the shell of a mighty warrior who stood with one 
steel gauntlet raised as though in readiness to defend 
the honour of his house. His initials, “ P.H.,” were en- 
graved on his giant steel breast, and his steel heels flour- 
ished a pair of fearful spurs, with rowels like daggers. 
Standing by this giant was a tiny suit of armour, not 
more than three feet in height, which might have been 
worn by a child. 

“ A strange pair,” murmured Colwyn, pausing a mo- 
ment to glance at them. As he turned his light in their 
direction his eye was caught by an inscription cut in the 
stone above their heads, and he drew nearer and read that 
the large suit had been worn by the former Philip Here- 
deith, “ A True Knight of God.” The smaller suit had 
been made for a dwarf attached to his house, who had 
followed his master through the Crusades, and fought 
gallantly by his side. 

Colwyn turned away and flashed his light along the 
walls in search of the case of pistols. His torch glanced 
over the numerous trophies adorning the walls, lances, 
swords, daggers, steel head-pieces, bascinets, peaked 
morions — relics of a departed age of chivalry, when 
knights quarrelled prettily for ladies, and fighting was 
35.3 


354 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


fair and open, before civilization had enriched warfare 
with the Christian attributes of gas-shells, liquid fire, 
and high explosives. Then the light fell on that which 
he was seeking — a dark oblong box, with brass corners, 
and a brass handle closing into the lid. 

Colwyn lifted the case down from the embrasure in 
which it was placed, and carried it to the bagatelle table. 
A brief examination of the lock satisfied him that it was 
too complicated and strong to be picked or broken. It 
was curiously wrought in brass, of an intricate antique 
pattern which would have puzzled a modern locksmith. 
He turned the case over, and saw that the bottom had 
been mortised and screwed. The screws had been deeply 
countersunk, and were embedded in rust, but a few 
were loose with age. Colwyn unscrewed these loose ones 
with his pocket-knife, and then set about unloosening 
the others. 

It was a tedious task, but Colwyn lightened it with the 
aid of a bottle of gun oil which he found in one of the 
presses. Some of the screws yielded immediately to that 
bland influence, and came out easily. Others remained 
fast in the intractable way of rusty screws, but Colwyn 
persevered, and by dint of oiling, coaxing, and unscrew- 
ing, finally had the satisfaction of seeing all the screws 
lying in a little greasy brown heap on the faded green 
cloth of the bagatelle table. The next thing was to lever 
off the bottom of the lid. That was not difficult, because 
the glue in the mortises had long since perished. Soon 
the bottom was lying on the table beside the screws, and 
the interior of the case revealed. 

The pair of weapons which Colwyn lifted from the 
case were horse pistols of a period when countryfolk 
feared to ride abroad without some such protection 
against highwaymen. They were superior specimens of 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


355 


their type. They were beautifully made, rich in design 
and solid in form, with ebony stocks and chased silver 
mountings. The long barrels were damascened, and the 
carved handles terminated in flat steel butts which would 
have cracked the pate of any highwayman if the shot 
missed fire. As Colwyn anticipated, the pistols were 
muzzle-loaders. The cock, which laid over considerably, 
was in the curious form of a twisted snake. When the 
trigger was pulled the head of the snake fell on the 
nipple. 

Colwyn examined them carefully. He first ascertained 
that they were unloaded by probing them with the ram- 
rod which was attached to each by a steel hinge. Then 
he ran his finger round the inside of the muzzles to 
ascertain whether either pistol had been recently fired. 
One was clean, but from the muzzle of the other he with- 
drew a finger grimed with gunpowder. While he was 
doing this his other hand came in contact with something 
slightly uneven in the smooth metal surface of the butt. 
He turned the pistol over, and noticed a small inner 
circle in the flat steel. It was a small hinged lid, which 
hid a pocket in the handle. He raised the little lid with 
his finger-nail, and a shower of percussion caps fell on 
the bagatelle table. This contrivance for holding caps 
was not new to Colwyn. He had seen it in other old- 
fashioned muzzle-loaders. 

Colwyn compared the caps which had dropped on the 
table with the one he had found upstairs. They were 
the same size. He tried the solitary cap on the nipple, 
and found that it fitted perfectly. As he did so, he 
saw something resembling a thread of yellow wool caught 
in the twisted steel of the hammer. It was a minute 
fragment, so small as to be hardly noticeable. Colwyn 
was quite unable to determine what it was, but its pres- 


356 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


ence there puzzled him considerably, and he was at a 
loss to understand how it had got caught in the hammer 
of the pistol. It struck him that the thread might be 
khaki, and his mind reverted to his earlier discovery of 
the patch of khaki in the wood outside the moat-house. 

It was with the hope of finding out whether this pistol 
had been lately used that Colwyn turned his attention 
to the velvet-lined interior of the case. The inside was 
divided into a large compartment for the pistols and 
several small lidded spaces. In one of these he found 
some shot, a box of percussion caps, and a powder-flask 
half-full of common gunpowder. Another space con- 
tained implements for cleaning the pistols. The contents 
of the next compartment puzzled him. There were some 
odd lengths of knotted string, and a coil of yellow tubu- 
lar fabric, about the thickness of his little finger, some 
inches in length. Colwyn recognized it at once. It was 
the wick of a tinder-lighter, then being sold by thousands 
by English tobacconists to replace a war-time scarcity 
of matches, and greatly used by cigarette smokers. 

The mystery of the presence of the wick in the pistol- 
case was not lessened because it enabled Colwyn to 
identify the tiny yellow fragment adhering to the cock 
of the pistol. He picked up the wick and observed that 
one end was cut clean, but the other end was blackened 
and burnt. At that discovery there entered his mind the 
first prescient warning of the possibility of some deep 
plan in which the pistol and the wick played important 
parts. With his brain seeking for a solution of that 
possibility, he proceeded to examine the pieces of string. 

They were odd lengths of ordinary thick twine, but 
they all seemed to consist of loose ends which had been 
knotted together. It was not until Colwyn took them out 
of the compartment that he noticed an amazing peculiar- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 357 

ity about them. Each piece of knotted string was burnt 
at both ends. 

There are some discoveries which spring into the mind 
with shattering swiftness. This was one of them. A 
revelation seemed to come to Colwyn as light from the 
sky at midnight, which, lays everything bare in one 
frightful flash. 

“Is it possible ?” 

He felt as though these words rushed from him like a 
thunder-roll reverberating through the empty space 
around him. But his set lips had not uttered a single 
sound. With tingling nerves he proceeded to carry out 
an experiment. He first laid the wick of the tinder- 
lighter along the stock of the pistol, just behind the ham- 
mer. He next took up one of the lengths of string, and 
pulling back the hammer and the trigger of the pistol, 
proceeded to bind them both firmly back with the string, 
which he passed twice round the wick. When he had 
tied the string tight he lit a match and applied it to the 
end of the wick which was farthest from the string. 
His idea was to see whether this extemporized fuse would 
creep along the stock of the pistol, burn the string, and 
release the bound cock and trigger. 

The wick smouldered and glowed, and began to creep 
towards the string, which crossed the stock of the pistol 
about three inches from the burning end. Colwyn took 
out his watch and timed its progress. In four minutes 
the first inch of the wick was consumed, and the spark 
at the end continued to creep sullenly forward in a dull 
red glow. In another eight minutes it reached the string, 
and Colwyn eagerly watched the process of the burning 
of the binding. The string singed, smouldered, and when 
nearly severed, sprang apart under the pressure of the 
hammer and trigger it had been holding back. The re- 


358 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


leased hammer fell with full force on the cap on the 
nipple, and exploded it. 

There, then, seemed the explanation. Mrs. Heredith 
had been shot with Nepcote’s revolver, but it was not 
the deliberately deadened sound of that slight weapon 
which had startled the guests in the dining-room on the 
night of the murder. The report they had heard was 
made by the heavier pistol in front of him. It was a ruse 
of terrifying simplicity but diabolical ingenuity. The 
wick of the tinder-lighter was an admirable slow match, 
obtainable in any tobacconist’s shop for a few pence, 
which, by means of this trick, had established a false alibi 
for the actual murderer by causing the report which had 
reached the dining-room, and sent the inmates hastening 
upstairs to ascertain the cause. The shot which had 
mortally wounded Mrs. Heredith must have been fired 
before. 

How long before? Obviously not very long. That 
would have been dangerous to the murderer’s plans. He 
had to consider two things. There was the chance of 
somebody entering the room before the false charge ex- 
ploded, and the possibility that the coldness of the body 
of his victim might arouse medical suspicions. Colwyn 
did not think that the criminal had avoided killing Mrs. 
Heredith so as to ensure against that risk of discovery. 
The infliction of a mortal wound which failed to cause 
immediate death not only required a high degree of 
anatomical knowledge, but left the door open to a dying 
confession which might have upset the whole plan. Fate 
had helped the murderer to that extent. 

But the murderer owed more than that to Fate. It 
was to that grim goddess he was indebted for the last 
wonderful touch of actuality which lifted the whole con- 
trivance so superbly above the realm of artifice. Sus- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


359 


picion was in the last degree unlikely in any case, but 
Hazel Rath’s entry and loud scream, just before the 
moment fixed for the explosion, ensured complete suc- 
cess by adding a natural verisimilitude which might have 
deceived the very Spirit of Truth. Colwyn esteemed 
himself fortunate indeed in lighting on what he believed 
to be the facts. Who could have imagined a situation 
in which whimsical Destiny had ironically stooped down 
from her high place to dabble ignobly in a murderer’s 
ghastly plot? 

The one point which perplexed Colwyn was the suc- 
cessful concealment of the pistol on the night of the 
murder. That part of the plan was as essential to the 
murderer as the false report, but it seemed strange that 
the pistol had not been discovered when the room was 
searched. An examination of the grate upstairs might 
reveal the reason. 

Before leaving the gun-room Colwyn replaced one of 
the pistols and restored the case as he had found it to 
its original position. He carried away with him the 
pistol which had been used. 

When he reached the upstairs bedroom he locked the 
door before proceeding to examine the fireplace. It was 
immediately apparent to him that the pistol had not been 
placed in the grate or beneath it. Either place would 
have meant discovery when the room was searched. It 
was a careful examination of the upper portion of the 
grate which suggested the hiding-place. The weapon 
could have been safely hidden within the broad iron 
flange running round the open damper of the grate. 

The complete revelation of this portion of the mur- 
derer’s design came to Colwyn as he was passing his 
hand over the inner surface of this ledge. It was a 
register grate, and the space at the back had not been 


360 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


filled in. The murderer, when concealing the pistol at 
the top of the grate, had only to balance it carefully on 
the flange, with the muzzle pointing into the room, to 
ensure that the recoil from the report would cause the 
weapon to fall into the deep hole between the back of 
the grate and the chimney. 

This additional proof of the murderer’s perverted in- 
telligence impressed Colwyn as much as the mechanism 
for the false report. The pistol, blindly recoiling and 
jumping behind the grate after the explosion of the blank 
charge, was almost as effectually concealed as at the bot- 
tom of the sea, and might have remained there for years 
without discovery. Colwyn plunged his arm into the 
hole, but could not reach the bottom. 

But the murderer had more in his mind than the 
effectual concealment of the pistol, important though that 
was to him. The grate was an excellent choice for two 
other reasons. It carried the slight vapour from the 
tinder wick up the chimney, and the convex iron interior 
formed an excellent sounding board which would enhance 
the sound of the report. Truly the dark being who had 
planned it all had left nothing to chance. He had fore- 
seen everything. His handiwork bore the stamp of un- 
holy genius. 

Who had done this thing? Who had sought, with 
such patient cunning, to upset those evidential principles 
by which blind Justice gropes her hesitating way to 
Truth? In concocting his masterpiece of malignant in- 
genuity the murderer had worked alone. His only ac- 
complice — apart from the after-hand of Fate — was a 
piece of automatic mechanism which had done his bidding 
secretly, and would never have betrayed him. It was 
this ability to work alone, scheming and brooding in 
solitary concentration until the whole of the horrible con- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


361 


ception had been perfected in every degree, which stamped 
the designer as a ferocious criminal of unusual mould, 
remorseless as a tiger, with a neurasthenic mind swayed 
by the unbridled savagery of natural impulse. 

As Colwyn meditated over the murder, his original 
impression of the guests assembled in the dining-room 
downstairs in a premeditated scene set for its production 
came back to him with renewed force. The murderer 
had taken his part in that scene as one of the uncon- 
scious audience, dining and taking his share in the con- 
versation, while his secret consciousness was strained to 
an intense anticipation of the false signal from his me- 
chanical accomplice upstairs. Colwyn could picture him 
joining in the mockery of meaningless phrases with dry 
lips, his ears listening for every sound, his eyes covertly 
watching the crawling hands of the clock. Then, when 
the crack had pealed forth, he had been able to exchange 
suspense for action, and rush upstairs with the others, 
confident in the feeling that, let suspicion point where 
it would, it could not fall on him. 

But the murderer had not foreseen the scream which 
preceded the shot. How had he comported himself un- 
der the shock of that cry, which was outside the region 
of his calculations? He had not time to reflect upon its 
origin, to investigate its source. He had to steel his 
nerves to face it because he dared not do otherwise. But 
its sudden effect on the nerve centres of his brain, previ- 
ously strained almost to the breaking point, must have 
brought him to the verge of a subsequent collapse. 

Colwyn believed he saw the end in sight. The pre- 
sumptions, the facts, and the motive all pointed to one 
figure as the murderer of Violet Heredith. She had 
been killed from the dual motive of punishment in her 
own case and vengeance on a greater offender than her- 


362 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


self. The alibi had been devised to ensure a tremendous 
revenge on the man by bringing him to the gallows as 
her supposed murderer. That part of the plan had gone 
astray, so the murderer, in the fanatical resolve of his 
latent fixed idea, had recourse to a further expedient as 
daring and original as the scheme which failed. The 
second instrument had been the means of his own un- 
doing. 

But as he reached this final stage of his reasoning, 
Colwyn stopped short in something like dismay. He 
had left a point of vital importance out of his calcula- 
tions. If the murderer was the man he thought, he was 
downstairs in the dining-room at the time the false shot 
was fired. Then whose hand had clutched Hazel Rath’s 
throat in the murdered woman’s bedroom upstairs, just 
before the shot was fired? 

Colwyn slowly paced up and down the room in the 
midnight silence, conning all the facts over again in 
the light of this overlooked incident. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


The three dined together in the big dining-room al- 
most in silence. Musard and Philip Heredith had not 
returned until after six, and their first knowledge of 
Colwyn’s presence was by some oversight deferred until 
they met at the dinner table. In the awkwardness of that 
surprise they sat down to dine, and Musard’s half-hearted 
efforts to start a conversation met with little response 
from his companions. Colwyn was preoccupied with 
his own thoughts, which apparently affected his appetite, 
for he sent away dish after dish untouched. Phil has- 
tened the service of the meal considerably, as though he 
were anxious to get it over as speedily as possible in 
order to hear what the detective had to say. As soon 
as the dessert was on the table he turned to Colwyn 
eagerly and asked him if he had any news. 

“ I have many things to say ,” was the response. 

“ In that case, shall we take our coffee into the smok- 
ing-room ? ” suggested Musard with a slight glance at the 
hovering figure of the butler. 

“ I prefer to remain here, if you do not mind/’ said 
Colwyn. 

Musard shot a puzzled look at him, which the detective 
met with a clear cold gaze which revealed nothing. There 
was another silent pause while they waited for the butler 
to leave the room. But Tufnell was pouring out coffee 
and handing cigars with the slow deliberation of a man 
sufficiently old to have outlived any illusions about the 
value of time. Philip Heredith lit a cigarette. Musard 
waved away the cigar-box and produced a strong black 
363 


364 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


cheroot from the crocodile-skin case. Colwyn declined 
a cigar, and his coffee remained untasted in front of him. 

“ You can leave the room now, Tufnell,” said Phil 
impatiently. “ Do not return until I ring. We do not 
wish to be disturbed/’ 

Tufnell bowed and left the room. As he did so 
Colwyn pushed back his chair and walked across to the 
window, where he stood for a few moments looking out. 
A wan young moon gleamed through the black tapestry 
of the avenue of trees, pointing white fingers at the house 
and plunging the old garden into deep pools of shadow. 
The trees huddled in their rows, whispering menacingly, 
and stretching half-stripped branches to the silent sky. 

Colwyn returned to the table and confronted the two 
men who were awaiting him. He glanced from one to 
the other of their attentive faces, and said abruptly : 

“ Hazel Rath is innocent.” 

“ I was certain of it.” Philip Heredith’s hand came 
down emphatically on the table in front of him as he made 
this declaration. “ I knew it all along,” he added in ad- 
ditional emphasis. 

“ This is an amazing piece of news, Mr. Colwyn,” said 
Musard, turning earnestly to the detective. “ Who, 
then—” 

Colwyn made a detaining gesture. 

“Wait,” he said. “I cannot tell you that just yet.” 
He turned to Phil, whose dark eyes were fixed on his 
face. “ It was you who asked me to try and solve the 
mystery of your wife’s death. It is to you that my ex- 
planation is due. Shall I speak freely in Mr. Musard’s 
presence, or would you rather hear me alone? ” 

“ I can go to the smoking-room,” said Musard, rising 
as he spoke. 

But Phil waved him to his seat again. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


365 

“ No, no, Musard, stay where you are. There is no 
reason why you should not hear what Mr. Colwyn ha9 
to say. Your advice may be needed,” he added as an 
afterthought. 

“ So be it,” said Colwyn. “ Then I had better com- 
mence by informing you that Hazel Rath has broken 
her silence. She has made a statement to the police, 
which, whilst affirming her innocence, does very little to 
clear up the murder. Her story, briefly, is that she went 
up to the left wing about half-past seven, noticed that 
Mrs. Heredith’s room was in darkness, and went in un- 
der the impression that she might be ill and in need of 
assistance. She groped her way across the room to turn 
on the light, and she had reached the head of the bed 
and was feeling for the switch when a hand clutched her 
throat. She screamed wildly, and the hand fell away. 
A moment afterwards the report of a shot filled the room. 
She found the electric switch, and turned on the light. 
The first thing she saw was a revolver — Nepcote’s re- 
volver — lying at her feet near the head of the bed. 
Then her eyes turned to the bed, and she saw Mrs. Here- 
dith, bleeding from the mouth and nose. While she was 
attempting to render her some assistance she heard foot- 
steps on the stairs, and thought of her own safety. She 
switched off the light and ran out, carrying the revolver 
and the handkerchief with which she had been wiping 
the blood from the dying woman’s lips. She was just 
in time to conceal herself behind the curtains in the cor- 
ridor and escape the observation of those who were rush- 
ing upstairs. There she stayed while the rooms were 
searched, and was afterwards able to steal downstairs 
unobserved and gain the safety of her mother’s apart- 
ments, where the revolver and the handkerchief were sub- 
sequently found.” 


366 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ This is a remarkable story,” said Musard slowly. 
“Do the police believe it?” 

“ They do not, but I have my reasons for thinking it 
true,” responded Colwyn. “ The next step in the story 
of how this unhappy girl became the victim of an ap- 
parently irrebuttable set of circumstances through her 
own silence, has to do with another person's secret 
visit to the moat-house on the night of the murder. 
That person was a man, who came to return to Mrs. 
Heredith the necklace which we subsequently discovered 
to be missing from her locked jewel-case. It is not neces- 
sary to relate how the necklace came to be in his hands. 
He had undertaken to return the necklace from London 
to enable Mrs. Heredith to produce k on the following 
day, and it was arranged between them that when he 
reached the moat-house that night he was to enter the un- 
used door in the left wing, which was to be previously 
unlocked for him, and was to wait on the staircase until 
Mrs. Heredith was able to steal down to him and obtain 
the jewels. That plan was upset by Tufnell finding 
the door unlocked, and locking it again before his arrival. 
When he did arrive he found himself unable to get in. 

“ Stop a moment,” exclaimed Musard hoarsely. “ This 
story goes too deep for me. Who is this man? Do 
you know him? Has he anything to do with the mur- 
der?” 

“ Yes, I know him, and he has much to do with the 
murder,” said the detective. “ Shall I mention his name, 
Mr. Heredith?” 

Phil nodded, as though he were unable to speak. 

“ The man is Captain Nepcote.” 

“ Nepcote ! ” A swift flash of wrath came into Mus- 
ard’s heavy dark eyes as he uttered the name. Then, 
in a wider understanding of the sordid interpretation of 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


367 


Colwyn’s story, he hesitatingly added: “I think I 
see. It was Nepcote’s revolver. Was it he who shot 
Violet ? ” 

“ Before answering that question it is necessary to 
give Nepcote’s explanation of his actions on that night. 
His own story is that he did not enter the house. He 
says that while he was waiting outside he heard a scream 
followed by a shot, and he then hid in the woods in front 
of the house until he thought it safe to return to London. 
He declares he is innocent of the murder.” 

“ That is a lie ! ” Phil burst forth. “ Who will believe 
him ? ” He stopped abruptly, and turned fiercely to 
Colwyn. “How do you know Nepcote said this?” he 
demanded. 

“ Because I saw him the night before I left London. 
He told me everything, and gave me the necklace.” 

“ And you let him go again ? Are you mad ? ” Phil 
was on his feet, shaking with excitement. 

“ What makes you think I let him go ? ” retorted 
Colwyn coldly. “ You need not be afraid that your wife’s 
murderer will escape justice. Nepcote is lying ill of 
pneumonia in a private hospital in London. He can only 
escape by death. But the manner in which you have re- 
ceived this information suggests to my mind that you 
have had your own suspicions of Nepcote all along, but 
have kept them to yourself.” 

“ I cannot conceive that to be any business of yours,” 
replied the young man, with a touch of hauteur. 

“ It seems to me that it is, in the circumstances. You 
came to me seeking my assistance because you believed 
in the innocence of Hazel Rath, but — as I am now con- 
vinced — you suppressed information which pointed to 
Captain Nepcote.” 

“ I told you all that I thought necessary.” 


368 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“You told me that your wife had been shot with 
Nepcote’s revolver. Is that what you mean?” 

“ Yes. That was sufficient to put you on the track 
without taking you into my confidence about . . . some- 
thing which affected my honour and the honour of my 
family.” Phil turned very pale as he uttered the last 
words. 

“ Perhaps Phil should have told you, but you must 
make allow — ” commenced Musard. But Colwyn 
silenced him with an imperative glance. 

“ At the time you came to see me, you believed that 
Captain Nepcote had murdered your wife?” he said, 
facing Phil. 

“ I did.” 

“ Do you mind telling me now on what ground you 
based that belief ? ” 

“ I fail to recognize your right to cross-question me,” 
replied the young man haughtily, “ but I will answer your 
question. It was for the reason that you have supposed. 
I suspected his relations with my wife. There was his 
revolver to prbve that he had been in her room. I do 
not know why Hazel Rath carried it away.” 

“ Perhaps I could enlighten you on that point. As 
you knew so much, it is equally certain that you knew 
about your wife’s missing necklace, though you did not 
tell me of that, either. But I will not go into that now — 
I wish to hurry on to my conclusion. I have at least done 
all that you asked me to do ; I have proved Hazel Rath’s 
innocence. But I have proved more than that. Cap- 
tain Nepcote is also innocent.” 

“ I should like to hear how you arrive at that con- 
clusion.” Phil strove to utter the words calmly, but his 
trembling lips revealed his inward agitation. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


369 


“ His story, as told to me, fits in with facts of which 
he could have had no knowledge. He says he found the 
door of the left wing locked, and we know it was locked 
by Tufnell more than an hour before. He states that 
after the shot he hid in the woods in front of the house. 
It was there Tufnell thought he saw somebody hiding; 
it was there I found a scrap of khaki adhering to a 
bramble at the spot indicated by Nepcote as his hiding- 
place. Tufnell admits that he called out in alarm when 
his eye fell on the crouching figure. Nepcote says that 
he saw Tufnell, heard his cry, and plunged deeper into 
the bushes for safety. Tufnell returned along the car- 
riage drive twenty minutes afterwards with Detective 
Caldew and Sergeant Lumbe. Nepcote heard the crunch 
of their feet on the gravel as they passed. His accuracy 
in these details which he could not possibly have known 
helped me to the conclusion that the whole of his story 
was true.” 

“ He had plenty of time to commit the murder, never- 
theless,” said Phil. 

“ It is useless for you to try and cling to that theory 
— now.” 

There was something in the tone in which these words 
were uttered which caused the young man to look swiftly 
at the detective from beneath furrowed brows. 

“ You seem to have constituted yourself the champion 
of this scoundrel,” he said, in a changed harsh voice. 

Musard glanced from one to the other with troubled 
eyes. There was a growing hint of menace in their con- 
versation which his mind, deeply agitated by the strange 
disclosures of the evening, could only fear without 
fathoming. 

“ I do not understand you,” he said simply, address- 


370 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


ing himself to Colwyn. “ If this man Nepcote did not 
commit the murder, who did? Was it not he who was 
in the bedroom when Hazel Rath went there in the dark? ” 

“ No,” said Colwyn ; “ it was not he.” 

“ Who was the man, then, who clutched Hazel Rath, 
by the throat?” persisted Musard. 

“ It was no man,” responded Colwyn, in a gloomy voice. 
“ That was the point which baffled me for hours when 
I thought the whole truth was within my grasp. Again 
and again I sought vainly for the answer, until, in mental 
weariness and utter despair, I was tempted to believe 
that the powers of evil had combined to shield the per- 
petrator of this atrocious murder from justice. Then 
it came to me — the last horrible revelation in this hell- 
ish plot. It was the hand of the dying woman, spasmod- 
ically clutching at the empty air in her death agonies, 
which accidentally came in contact with Hazel Rath’s 
throat, and loosened her brooch.” 

“ Oh, this is too terrible,” murmured Musard. His 
swarthy face showed an ashen tint. “ What do you 
mean? What are you keeping back? Where does all 
this lead to ? ” 

“ It leads to the exposure of the trick — the trick of 
a false report by which the murderer sought to procure 
an alibi and revenge.” 

“ What do you mean? What have you found out?” 
cried Phil, leaping to his feet and facing Colwyn. 

As he uttered the words, a loud shot in the room over- 
head rang out with startling distinctness. 

“ I mean — that,” said Colwyn quietly. 

Even up to the moment of his experiment he was not 
quite certain. But in the one swift glance they ex- 
changed, everything was revealed to each of them. 

Before Musard could frame the question which 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


371 

trembled on his amazed lips, Phil spoke. His face was 
very white, and his dark eyes blazing: 

“ Yes. That is it. You have found me out.” His 
voice, deepened to a bitter intensity, had a deliberate in- 
tonation which was almost solemn. “ What did they do 
to me? Shall I ever forget my feelings when, unob- 
served by them, I caught them in the house one day, 
whispering and kissing? I walked straight out into the 
woods to be alone with my shame. My brain was on 
fire. When I recalled his lecherous looks and her wanton 
meaning glances I was tempted to destroy myself in 
misery and despair. Human nature — ah, God, what a 
beastly thing it is. I had trusted them both so utterly — 
I loved her so deeply. How had they repaid my trust 
and love? By deceiving me, under my eyes, in my own 
home, before my marriage was three months old. 

“ That night I dreamt of obscene things. I awoke 
with their images hovering by my bedside, looking at me 
with sneering eyes, mocking me with lewd gestures. 
* Your honour and the honour of the Herediths — Where 
is it ? ’ they kept repeating : ‘ Sold by the wanton you 

have made your wife. What is honour to the lust of the 
flesh? There is nothing so strong in the world/ But 
as I watched them the ceiling rolled away, and in the 
darkness of the sky a stem and implacable face appeared. 
And it said, ‘ There is one thing stronger than honour, 
stronger even that the lust of the flesh, and that is — 
Death/ 

“ It was the answer to a question I had been asking 
myself ever since I knew. I got up, and sat by the open 
window, to plan how I should kill them both. But I 
wanted the man to feel more than a swift thunderstroke 
of mortal agony. I wished to make him suffer as I had 
suffered, but at first I could see no way. 


372 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


“ Then it came to me in the strangest way — a light, a 
direction, a guide. I had been smoking as I sat there 
thinking — smoking cigarettes which I lit with a little 
automatic lighter I always used. I must, have laid it 
down carelessly, for I was interrupted in my meditations 
by the sight of a thin trail of vapour ascending from the 
window ledge. I had failed to put the extinguisher on 
the lighter, and the wick had gone on burning. As I 
watched the red spark crawling almost imperceptibly 
along the yellow wick, there dawned in my mind the 
first glimmering of the idea of a slow match and a de- 
layed report. Bit by bit it took form, and the means of 
my revenge was made clear to me. I went back to bed 
and slept soundly. 

“ I was in no hurry to act There was much to think 
over, much to do, before the plan was finally perfected. 
I carried out experiments in the gun-room when every- 
body was in bed, secure in the knowledge that no report, 
however loud, could penetrate from those thick walls up- 
stairs. While I was making ready I watched them both. 
Not a furtive glance or caress passed between them which 
I did not see. 

“ The night my aunt asked Violet about the necklace 
I suspected that it was no longer in her possession. I 
guessed that by her evasive answers and telltale face. 
When she left the room and went upstairs I crept after 
her in the shadows and followed her to the door of 
Nepcote’s room. I listened to their conversation ; I heard 
him promise her to return secretly to the moat-house on 
the following night with the necklace. My heart leapt 
as I listened. I believed that I had him. 

“ I stole away quietly without waiting to learn any 
more, but I stayed up till far into the night preparing 
my final plans. My intention was to shoot her just be- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


373 


fore dinner, and arrange for the false report to explode 
after he had arrived and hidden himself in the old stair- 
case, waiting for her to go to him. Then, when the re- 
port startled everybody in the dining-room, I intended to 
be the first to rush upstairs, and lead the search in the 
direction of the old staircase. I would have had him 
by the throat, before he had time to get away. How 
would he have been able to account for his secret pres- 
ence in the house when her jewels were in his pocket 
and her dead body upstairs, close to where he was 
hiding? 

“ I had intended to kill Violet with a small revolver 
which I had bought in a secondhand place at London 
last winter, but Nepcote’s carelessness in leaving his own 
revolver in the gun-room gave the last finishing touch 
to my plan. I could scarcely believe my luck when I 
found it. It seemed as though he himself were playing 
into my hands. I hid it away, expecting that there would 
be inquiries, but there were none. He had forgotten all 
about it. It was strange, too, that Violet herself helped 
by telling my aunt before dinner on the night of her pre- 
tended illness that she did not wish to be disturbed by 
anybody. That removed a defect in my arrangements 
which had caused me much anxious thought. I had 
feared that somebody, probably a servant, might enter 
the room in the period between the first and second re- 
ports. It was a chance I could not afford to overlook, 
and I could see no way of guarding against it except 
by locking the door, which I did not want to do. I 
wanted to leave the door partly open so as to make sure 
of the second report penetrating to the dining-room down- 
stairs. 

“ When my aunt gave me Violet’s message in the 
library shortly before dinner I knew thaj the moment had 


/ 


374 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


arrived. The altered arrangements for an earlier dinner 
cost me a moment’s perplexity, but no more. One can- 
not hurry one’s own guests, and I knew it would be impos- 
sible to get dinner over as quickly as my aunt anticipated. 
If it were ending too quickly for my purpose it would be 
an easy matter to introduce a subject which would set 
somebody talking. That, as you know, is what actually 
happened. 

“After my aunt left me I waited until the last pos- 
sible moment before slipping upstairs. The revolver and 
the pistol were locked away in my own bedroom in 
readiness. I got them out. The pistol was completely 
prepared except for the cap. I had bound a twelve inch 
tinder-wick to the stock in order to allow for a delay of 
nearly fifty minutes between the lighting and the report. 
I knew that Nepcote expected to arrive at the moat- 
house by half-past seven at the latest, but I gave him a 
margin of a few minutes for unexpected delays. I put 
the pistol in my pocket, and wrapping the revolver in a 
silk muffler to deaden the report, went swiftly to my 
wife’s room. I closed the door behind me as I entered. 

“ She was lying on the bed with her eyes closed, and 
did not hear me approach. That helped me. Can you 
understand my feelings. I was about to destroy some- 
thing I loved better than life itself, but it was not she 
who was lying on the bed. She had died before — died 
by her own act — leaving behind her another woman 
whose life was a living lie, who was so corrupt and worth- 
less as to be unfit to live. It was that I was going to de- 
stroy. I felt no compunction — no remorse. As I 
placed the muzzle of the revolver against her breast, she 
opened her eyes in terror, and saw me. I pulled the 
trigger quickly. ... As I did so I heard the dinner gong 
sound downstairs. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


375 


“ The muffled report made less noise than the clapping 
of a pair of hands. I knew that faint sound would not 
be heard downstairs. She never moved, and I thought 
she was dead. I bent over the fireplace, shook some caps 
out of the butt of the pistol, and placed one on the nipple. 
Then I lit a match and started my prepared fuse. It was 
an easy matter to place the pistol in position at the top 
of the grate; the difficulty of recovering it subsequently 
was not made manifest to me until after my illness, al- 
though my previous secret examination of the grate had 
convinced me that the recoil of the explosion would cause 
the pistol to fall to the bottom of the chimney behind 
the grate. When I had placed the pistol in position I 
turned off the electric light, and opened the window to 
allow the fumes of the burning wick to escape. Then I 
hurried downstairs. I was not in the room three minutes 
altogether. I saw nobody on my way down ; nearly 
everybody had gone in to dinner, but I was in time to 
sit down with the others. 

“ I felt quite cold and collected as I sat at the dinner 
table waiting for the moment of my vengeance. I felt 
as though I was under the control of some force im- 
mensely stronger than myself which held me firm with 
giant hands while the minutes slowly ebbed away. I am 
sure there was nothing unusual in my behaviour. I pre- 
tended to eat, and joined in the conversation around me. 

“ The report did not come at the moment I anticipated, 
but I was not perturbed at the delay. My experiments 
had taught me the difficulty of fixing an explosion for 
an exact period. The time was in general approximately 
the same, but there were reasons which caused a slight 
difference. The wick always burnt at a uniform rate; 
the trouble was with the string. Sometimes it was 
slow in catching. Sometimes the pressure of the string 


376 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


partly extinguished the wick and made combustion slower 
as it neared the point of contact. Once I tied the string 
so tight that the wick went out altogether just before 
reaching the string. But I had taken measures to over- 
come these little irregularities, and to make sure of the 
string catching readily I had rubbed a little petrol on it 
where it crossed the wick. 

“ But it was the scream before the report which upset 
my calculations and almost caused me to collapse. When 
that terrible cry rang out my false strength fled from 
me, leaving me weak and trembling. I think I should 
have betrayed myself if the report had not followed so 
quickly, throwing everybody into the same state of con- 
fusion as myself. I do not know how I managed to make 
my limbs carry me upstairs with the others. I did not 
know what had happened. My brain refused to act. I 
was conscious of nothing except that a great wheel seemed 
turning inside my head, tightening all my nerves to such 
taut agony that I could hardly refrain from crying aloud. 

“ What I said or did when I found myself in the bed- 
room I do not know. When I saw that everything was 
as I had arranged my mind began swinging like a pendu- 
lum towards my revenge, and I struggled to lead the 
search towards the staircase. But I was unable to move. 
I was like a man in a dream, encompassed by invisible ob- 
stacles. Then the wheel in my head suddenly relaxed, I 
felt the room and its objects slipping from me, and every- 
thing went black. 

“ You know about my illness. It was not until I was 
supposed to be recovering that the power of clear thought 
came back to me. There were days when my brain 
was numb and powerless, like that of one newly awakened 
from a terrible nightmare, striving to recall what had 
happened. Then one day the veil was drawn, and I re- 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


377 


membered everything. My aunt was in the room, and 
I questioned her. She brought Musard to me, and from 
him I learnt the truth. 

“ Intuitively I realized what had happened. Hazel 
Rath had gone to the room for some unknown reason, 
had seen my wife lying there, and screamed. Then, 
hardly conscious of what she was doing, she picked up 
the revolver I had left lying by the bedside, and ran out 
of the room in fright. I was even able to divine a rea- 
son for her silence under the accusation of murder. She 
felt that nobody would believe her story, especially after 
the history of her mother’s past was brought to light. 

“As I turned over what they had told me and real- 
ized that my own secret was safe, I thought I saw the 
way to accomplish my revenge and save Hazel Rath. Up 
till then the revolver had not been identified as Nepcote’s. 
It seemed to me that the mere disclosure of that fact was 
sufficient to direct attention to Nepcote and bring to light 
his movements on that night. But the detective who came 
to see me about the revolver was too foolish and obstinate 
to grasp the importance of my information. It was then 
I decided to go to you. It was daring, perhaps, but it 
seemed safe enough to me. I was determined to entangle 
Nepcote, and to free Hazel Rath. 

“ I told you no more than I had told to the other de- 
tective. I had powerful motives for reticence. If I had 
told you more you would have seen that I had an ulterior 
reason for directing attention to Nepcote. I had not 
the least fear that you would discover my secret, but 
the knowledge, if imparted to you, would have weakened 
the impression I wanted to convey by suggesting to your 
mind that I was actuated by hatred of Nepcote. Be- 
sides, I did not wish any living being to know of my 
shame. I believed that I could accomplish my revenge 


378 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


without its ever being known. I thought Nepcote would 
prefer to perish as the victim of circumstances rather 
than incur public opprobrium by a defence which he 
knew would never be believed. The actual facts against 
him were too strong. He could neither extenuate nor 
deny them. He could not explain his lying telegrams, his 
secret return, his presence in the moat-house, his posses- 
sion of the necklace, the revolver in the bedroom where 
the body was. Therefore, it was only necessary to give 
you a starting point, because discovery was inevitable 
where so much was hidden. I saw to it that the loss of 
the necklace was discovered after your arrival. That 
was all you needed to know. 

“ I do not know what oversight of mine put you on 
the track of the truth. There was one, but I do not see 
how that could have helped you. It was not until the 
following afternoon in the gun-room, when Musard drew 
your attention to the pistol-case, that I remembered that 
the pistol I had used was still at the back of the fireplace 
upstairs, where apparently it had lain undiscovered dur- 
ing my illness. I had taken the precaution of concealing 
the key of the case, but I decided to restore the pistol 
that night after you left. It was more difficult to re- 
cover than I anticipated, owing to the depth of the space 
behind the grate. I had to push back the bedstead and 
use the tongs before I could reach it. I believe it would 
have lain there undiscovered for years. There was noth- 
ing else that I can recall, except that when I restored the 
pistol I saw I had left the end of one of my experimental 
tinder-lighter wicks lying in the case. 

“ But I do not wish to know how you found out, now 
that Nepcote has escaped. I have nothing left to live 
for. The doctor thinks I am recovering, but I knew 
that it was only the hope of revenge which kept me going. 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


379 


Now that is gone I have not long to live. I rejoice that 
it is so. But whatever had happened, I would have saved 
that poor girl, Hazel Rath. ... I ask you to believe 
that . . . Violet. . . .” 

He ceased, and with a weary gesture, let his head fall 
on his outstretched arms, as though the strength which 
bore him up while he told his tale deserted him when he 
had made manifest the truth. 

His two listeners sat for some minutes in silence, each 
engrossed in his own thoughts. Musard stared gloom- 
ily at Phil with unseeing eyes. He was as one who had 
passed through unimagined horrors in a space not to be 
measured by time, to emerge with a fatigued sense of 
the black malignity of unknown gods who create the pas- 
sions of humanity for their own brutal sport. His mov- 
ing lips betrayed a consciousness loosened from its moor- 
ings, tossed in a turbulent sea of disaster. Then they 
formed the whispered words : 

“ The house was founded in horror and it ends in 
horror. So the old tradition comes true.” 

The next moment he turned his eyes on Colwyn with 
a look askance, as though he saw in him the instrument 
of this misery. 

“Why did Hazel Rath keep silence?” he asked. 

“ Women have made greater sacrifices for love,” 
Colwyn gently replied. “ Hazel Rath loved him, and 
kept silence to shield him. She would not have spoken 
at all if suspicion had not fastened on Nepcote, and 
even when she did speak she kept something back. We 
may now learn later what actually passed between Hazel 
and Mrs. Heredith in the bedroom that night. My own 
opinion is that, while Hazel was bending over her, the 
dying woman whispered the name of her murderer.” 

“What are you going to do now?” Musard abruptly 


380 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


demanded, in sudden change of mood, speaking as though 
there were nobody present but their two selves. 

“ There is only one thing to do.” 

“ Do you mean to let the world know the truth — to 
give him up to justice?” 

“ What other course is there open for me to pursue ? ” 
said Colwyn sadly. 

“ I cannot see what earthly purpose will be gained by 
making this horrible story public. Consider, I beg of 
you, all the circumstances before you inflict this dread- 
ful sorrow and scandal on an honoured family.” 

“ It is because I have to consider all the circumstances 
that I have no option.” 

“ Is there no other way ? ” persisted Musard. “ He is 
mad. He must have been possessed. You heard his 
story; his hallucinations were those of an insane person. 
He had some justification. He would never have com- 
mitted this terrible deed of his own free will.” 

Colwyn did not reply. It was useless to point out that 
there is no such thing as free will in human affairs, and 
that if Philip Heredith had been impelled to his crime by 
the evil force of passions which were stronger than the 
restraining power of human reason, he must pay the full 
price demanded by humanity for the only safeguard of 
its supremacy. 

There was the sound of an opening door and footsteps 
outside, and a voice called: 

“ Phil ! Vincent ! Where are you ? ” 

“ They have returned ! ” Musard excitedly exclaimed. 
* What ^ire they to be told ? ” 

“ I cannot say,” replied Colwyn, casting a sombre 
glance at Phil’s drooping and motionless figure. 

There was something new in his posture — a stark 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


38i 

stillness which arrested his eye. He stepped quickly to 
his side and bent over him. 

“ He is dead,” he said. 

“ Dead ? My God ! Impossible ! ” 

“ It is quite true. It is better so.” 

“Vincent!” Miss Heredith’s voice sounded not far 
away. 

“She is coming here. Quick, what am I to say to 
her?” 

“ I cannot tell you,” responded Colwyn, with another 
glance at the still form. “ It was he who called me in 
to solve this mystery, and I have done what he asked. 
I will leave you to tell her what you will, but I cannot 
keep silence afterwards where the liberty of innocent 
people is involved. Justice is as impersonal as Truth 
herself.” 

“ Vincent ! ” This time the voice sounded just out- 
side the door. 

“ I must stop her — she must not come in here,” said 
Musard, starting up. 

But he was too late. The door opened, and Miss 
Heredith stood in the doorway. 

Her startled eyes took in the agitated face of Musard, 
and then travelled to the drooping attitude of the figure 
at the table. She went quickly past the two men, and 
bent over her nephew. As she did so, she sobbed aloud. 
All the pity and pathos of a woman, all the misery and 
mystery of a broken heart, welled forth in her faint 
mournful cry. 

“ This will kill her,” said Musard savagely. 

But Colwyn felt that it would not be so. As he turned 
from the room, leaving the living and the dead together, he 
knew that when the first bitterness of the shock was over, 


382 


THE HAND IN THE DARK 


and she was faced again with the consciousness of duty, 
she would call on her abiding faith to help her to wear, 
without flinching, the heavy grey garment of life. 


THE END 














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